Something Important

As I read his piece, I thought increasingly, "I am sorry this is so long, but I did not have time to write anything shorter".

All right, sunshine. You're looking at a NY camera show for happy-snappers and camera buyers. Now go to a show that concentrates on pictures: especially, Arles. The link is to a gear-head piece, and not an especially clever one.

Cheers,

R.
 
I don't know. I'm very young for the RFF community, yet I associate myself with a group of other young photographers just as dedicated to critical work, printing and shooting manual.

One day the g6-toting young man is going to have a family, grow old and develope leicalust, maybe he'll also find profound interest in film too :D
 
My goodness, that's a sad way to see things.

I learned never to underestimate the power of human mind.
The young ones are not clueless, they are not insensitive to beauty and timeless qualities. If there are people who will bring true golden age of photography without sacrificing what has happened before, it would be them.

The more I read about Mr. Tuck's writings, the more I realize that I just don't see things his way. May be just as well.

Well-written? Depressingly so.
The only thing important in that piece of writing is not to see things that way.
I want my 4 minutes back.
 
All the younger photographers I know (friends around the 30 year mark) doing important work are gravitating to medium format (Hasselblads and Mamiyas) and a few are using digital M (Getty Reportage photographers). Some are exploring large format. I don't see them using inexpensive digital except their iPhones for Instagramming.

So I don't really see where this piece is going and it was a tad long.
 
I'm 47 YO and I don't give a **** for cameras show. So to speak, as in the article's language.
If art exhibition isn't so far it is where I'm going since I was kid.
Look at impressionists work to realize what sharpens and details lost their importance long time ago.

Many people never ever care about what this guy is taking about. This is why Brownie and Polaroid were so popular. This is why Lomography started in nineties. And now Instagram.
 
We are so in love with doom and gloom messages. The moment that digital camera sales hit a bump in the road we start proclaiming the old and familiar is out and the new and unguessable is coming through the front door. :)
 
Bill Pierce said:
Want to read something important?

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-graying-of-traditional-photography.html
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I read this when he posted it and feel it is one of Tuck's most insightful posts. Of course there will be exceptions, and many of them will be concentrated in forums like this. But I think he's right on about the norms and trend.

I've got three kids in their 20s, and for them and all their friends I know, they see no need for any camera beyond their phones.

John
 
I'm suspicious simply on the basis of marketing logic. With sales declining, a new paradigm is on the horizon.

The article talks about the desire for intimacy and authenticity over technical perfection. Hmmm. The opposition itself is so dated. I don't think younger people can even imagine intimacy without technological mediation (being constantly 'in touch'). And the search for a perfection that is defined through self-image is going strong.

Curiously, the ethos in the early CCD-based versions of the Leica digital Ms would seem to make it the camera of this transitional era that is most likely to bridge the transition and be looked upon with nostalgic favor in the brave new world that is coming.
 
Dave Jenkins said:
For all of you who are huffing and harumphing -- yes, you! -- you are the ones Tuck was talking about.
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At the risk of offending Kirk and a few others, he is full of hooey.

Photography is always changing, unless of course you use a Leica, they never change. Smaller, lighter and more accessible cameras will not revive the market. Cameras that do more of the thinking are not going to change anything. More financially accessible cameras, with correspondingly smaller profit margins will certainly not improve the camera companies bottom lines. And more connectivity is just another wonderful, dead end feature. I'm sorry to have to tell you this but it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the "story" or the "love". The youth will not save this market.

What is really changing markets everywhere are the aging buyers. The US, Europe and pretty much all the rest of the developed markets are getting old, pure and simple. The Baby Boomers have driven every major market since they started coming on the scene, now they are retiring in droves and their spending is slowing down. The upcoming generations are much smaller and just cannot spend at the rate the baby boomers did, even if they were inclined to. Cameras are a discretionary line item. Your old one works fine, and if that one dies you still have a passable back up in your phone camera. Besides, you have it with you when you need the picture.

Kirk writes well and I like to read his posts. I don't always agree with him, but he brings up some interesting points. This time he is wrong about the reasons. But he is right that the camera industry is headed for the doldrums for awhile. At least until the market balances out again, and the industry shrinks to match it.
 
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Were Mr. Tuck to be engaged in another trade, he could, with some justification, be accused of sprinkling too much salt on the potatoes, over-egging the pudding and heaping too much food on the plate.

There could well be some nourishing morsels embedded within his article, but I question the effort involved in winkling them out.

I'm minded of the response often heard from trial judges exasperated by long-winded narratives spouted by attention-seeking lawyers - ''Move along, counsellor, before you send both the jury and myself to sleep...''.
 
Pioneer said:
. . . Photography is always changing. . .
What is really changing markets everywhere are the aging buyers. The US, Europe and pretty much all the rest of the developed markets are getting old, pure and simple. The Baby Boomers have driven every major market since they started coming on the scene, now they are retiring in droves and their spending is slowing down. The upcoming generations are much smaller and just cannot spend at the rate the baby boomers did, even if they were inclined to. . . .
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Quite.

Cheers,

R.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pioneer
. . . Photography is always changing. . .
What is really changing markets everywhere are the aging buyers. The US, Europe and pretty much all the rest of the developed markets are getting old, pure and simple. The Baby Boomers have driven every major market since they started coming on the scene, now they are retiring in droves and their spending is slowing down. The upcoming generations are much smaller and just cannot spend at the rate the baby boomers did, even if they were inclined to. . . .

Roger Hicks said:
Quite.

Cheers,

R.
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Ish. The Buster generation/ Generation X (depending whose definition you use) is larger than the Boomers, just has more bills at the moment with kids of their (our) own. The Boomers still had 2.2 kids, it's us younger folks that are letting the side down reproduction-wise. And the Boomers aren't dying fast enough ... ;-)

Good history can't be written until 50+ years after the events. Let's not try to write the history of the camera industry in 2014 just yet.

Think about it. In 1963, who would have thought that the SLRs would ever reach the heights they have - or that miniature TV cameras would take over from them? And worse, miniature TV cameras in hand-held computers that are also radio-telephones?
 
Well, photography IS always changing. That's indisputable.

As for relative incomes/expenditures, what I was agreeing with was that growth is slowing so there's less money around, and perpetual growth is unsustainable anyway. As for "good history", I'm not so sure there is any such thing. History is perpetually rewritten to suit the prejudices of the day, such as the flat untruth that first Britain and then the United States grew rich through free trade when both were heavily protectionist economies.

Cheers,

R.
 
As a citizen of a former colony, Roger, I always thought that Britain grew rich by exploiting the "pink" bits of the globe.

I should translate that for those outside the Commonwealth - but I'll leave them guess.
 
shadowfox said:
My goodness, that's a sad way to see things.
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His description of the people at the EXPO was spot on though. Many older guys were trying to "out cool" each other on the floor. However, as Roger stated, it is an equipment show, so... you expect these things.
 
That is a wicked excellent piece of writing - not simply its style, but its ideas and viewpoints.

Every generation gets its chance to change the world of photography.
Of course us older farts complain about it, but (thankfully) the young
punks ignore us and move the art and its tools forward.

I want to be 25 again.

(Sh#t, I want to be 50 again ! !)

:D
 
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