Some predictions about the future of photography

hellomikmik said:
This world develops towards the prevalence of rationality, which is a trap into which we can easily fall.
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Very good post.
Rationality is at the crux of it, isn't it.

May human intuition rise once again like the waterline of a Great Flood and drown us in its beauty.

May we regain our humanity.
 
paulfitz76 said:
Question is, will there be any place for a really "great print" in the coming years.
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Of course there will be! thats like saying will there be a place for great painting or writing or music. For a great number of people interested in photographs and photography a photograph doesn't exist unless it is a print, therefore there will always be a place for the very best or "great print" regardless of whether it is a digital print or an analogue print.

Jack I agree but I think it should read "May human intuition rise once again like the waterline of a Great Flood and drown us in its beauty. May we not loose our humanity"

If you allow young people now to believe predictions like this, then you do any young person you may have a chance to influence a huge disservice! They will only think a crappy low res picture is good, if the people who can show them otherwise stop doing so!
 
d_ross said:
If you allow young people now to believe predictions like this, then you do any young person you may have a chance to influence a huge disservice! They will only think a crappy low res picture is good, if the people who can show them otherwise stop doing so!
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Now this is an interesting take on things. So our role is to show them the way, so they can see what's really good and rises substantially above the mundane pack. That way, the true aesthetic will not be lost.

I am wondering if this is how painters felt at the advent of photography.

I can agree with this, but the real question for me is are they willing to listen?

In my experience, most people are not willing, until they are forced to from some outside factor.

But in any case, I think you are on to something here.
 
One can only judge quality based on one's own knowledge of quality, I don't believe there is a need to force anything upon anyone. We just need to continue to place if front of them things of true quality and craft, while at the same time doing so with Contemporaneous images that they can relate to! We can't expect the likes of Ansell Adams images to motivate or inform many young people, but given images they want to look at and can relate to, they can then see what a true great print looks like.
 
Adding things to image making, like 35mm camera's > digital camera's > smart phones etc, is like adding books to a library, no number of new books can devalue those already on the shelf. And not until all the new books have been read and thought about can a decision be made about the state of the library. I hope, and don't believe, that all the currently new (metaphorical) photography books have been read and digested enough to predict the end of the two dimensional photograph as a physical object of value.
 
d_ross said:
Adding things to image making, like 35mm camera's > digital camera's > smart phones etc, is like adding books to a library, no number of new books can devalue those already on the shelf..
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In a way they can..

It's like the emperors new clothes, but with a twist. The availability of cameras and the removal of the technical hurdles involved in photography, exposes the imposters of previous generations. The great ones will remain great because of their vision and creativity, but those who only managed because they understood the technology or had access to expensive equipment will fail..
 
back alley said:
i think it was yogi berra...

who also once said,'when you reach a fork in the road, take it.'
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I just looked it up, it was ... "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." by Niels Bohr ... he also came up with the catchy but more chilling "Chain reaction"
 
Sparrow said:
I just looked it up, it was ... "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." by Niels Bohr ... he also came up with the catchy but more chilling "Chain reaction"
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"I really didn't say everything I said!" - Yogi Berra
 
If more people taking more photos and getting more enjoyment out of using more and various equipment and showing their pictures to others across the globe at the click of switch comes at price that equates to fewer people getting paid for taking pictures of mashed potato so that the advertising industry can pretend it is ice cream then that is a price I am happy to pay.
 
kshapero said:
I have told this story before but a year or so ago I was at a parade and I was changing film and two dopey looking teenagers came up to me wondering what I was doing. I said it was the latest technology, film, and it would soon replace digital. They were so impressed. And so it goes......
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Hahaha! I love that.
 
j j said:
If more people taking more photos and getting more enjoyment out of using more and various equipment and showing their pictures to others across the globe at the click of switch comes at price that equates to fewer people getting paid for taking pictures of mashed potato so that the advertising industry can pretend it is ice cream then that is a price I am happy to pay.
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Indeed, but that isn't the whole of the price.

Still, being freed from any sense that we shouold seek to, or even could, make money from taking pictures, or from any sense that being able to take pictures makes us special should free us to just make pictures of things we care about and to share them with other people in any way want. It could lead to real creativity amongst those happy few that are left and just get on with it.

Mike
 
I prefer Ken Tanaka's article on Mike Johnston's TOP blog.

I think Mr. Tuck was just a bit depressed after a look at the crystal ball.
 
i call bollocks on the whole sad, whiny bit of goo (if i may).

the industry became bloated with 'technicians'. the ones who could talk a mean game, knew more about d-76 than anyone else on earth and who continued to pump out the same banal material that suddenly was in reach of the part-timers or enthusiasts due in part to technological leaps. they had huge camera collections and 'specialized' in everything from product photography to corporate portraits. their day is done, no mistaking that.

the amateur, free chap or enthusiast is no threat to me. technology has only provided new ways of working and/or reaching mass audiences and there remains work for those who have responded to the changes around them and rely on more than simple technical prowess. Dave Burnett comes to mind.

in the heads of those 'dopey teenagers' are often brilliant ideas and insight into their world and what is important to them. the folks who listen are the ones that will remain relevant.
 
Lots, most things said in the article, are not predictions but facts.

But what does it matter? Less money for quality commercial photography? Very old news...
Cameras with less control and quality, and technically easier ones replacing others because internet and screens require low quality? Very old news...

I prefer to think -honestly I do- things haven't changed too much really in decades from the point of view of visual communication. Markets change, yes, and gear, but when we're out shooting we're close to Mr. Barnack shooting nearly 100 years ago, and when people upload lots of images, it's close to the color negative consumer era 50 years ago...

And if we go to a deeper point such as creation... Well, almost nothing has changed in centuries... Life has changed, yes, but to be human beings involves the same joys and tragedies, and those are the ones we keep talking about on our images if we talk about images that count in a long term...

Cheers,

Juan
 
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