The Death of Photography

Well, taking a photo of something doesn't make it photography. I take photos with my iPhone on a semi daily basis. It doesn't make me a photographer/artist. It is indeed a bookmark of something I need to remember and will be deleted. Forever.

I am also not sure if I agree with "obsession with photography". I think "we" are obsessed with sharing and remembering which I think comes from the fact that we live in an overstimulated society.
I remember being a kid and going to the museum with my folks and sometimes I would look at a work of art for 10 minutes, let it soak in. To me that is the greatest thing. Being struck by something that stops you on your tracks and makes you think.

Am I over thinking this?
 
Owning a paint brush and a canvas does not make you an artist only a painter. The same is true of photography. Having the technical skill is not enough you must have something to say on an emotive level that communicates to others via your photograph. Taking snapshots is like throwing a net into the ocean hoping to get something of value. Photograpic art is spearfishing.
 
I have several binders chock full of B&W 35mm negatives that, 99.99% of which will never be printed. Only the technology for making images has changed. Those negatives cost me thousands of dollars to make but now, with my phone the next few thousands will be much cheaper. And no, the afore mentioned negs are not organized in any meaningful manner.

But now, at 66 and retired I still get much more fun out of messing around with very old film cameras than with my i-phone. So, I guess i'm not in the main demographic the writer was talking about. My general knowledge about photo editing could be summed up on a 3X5 index card.
 
I imagine the discussion was somewhat similar in 1885 when George Eastman brought out a camera anyone could use to shoot rolls of images.

In case no one noticed, by the way, painting is dead--killed by photography 100 years ago.

It's a mistake to judge the arts simply in terms of how many factories are making their tools.
 
Over the last couple of years there have been quite a lot of 'death of photography' posts here at RFF ... usually triggered by the type of article the OP linked to.

Photography for me is something I do that gives a level of personal satisfaction that I don't get from anything else. This apparent dilution has zero affect on me and I don't see that changing.
 
Agree with Hellomikmik - poor mix of ideas. Poorly argued too, IMO.

In the future, he said, the “real value creation will come from stitching together photos as a fabric, extracting information and then providing that cumulative information as a totally different package.”
Click to expand...

Presumably that totally different package won't be a photograph, then.

Any categorisation algorithm will struggle with outliers, where creativity is to be found.
 
The title is nonsense. The subtitle is outdated: we already ARE photographing everything and AREN'T looking at anything.
The subject of the article is boring as noted above (how many times does it have to die, due to how many reasons, until it will be decided that it's immortal?)
And the details are mostly focused on a commercial decision, not on photography.

So no, not really interesting 🙂
 
I think it's more a matter of photography being dead as it currently exists. Viewing images on a computer or a phone is not photography, and this is what nearly everyone does these days.

Yesterday I spent 3 hours tediously going through my prints looking for something to frame (mostly because the image needed to fit the mat from the thrift store frame, LOL). Once a strong image was found and placed on the wall in a good place, now that's photography. The pieces that are up are what I consider pretty good stuff, so no one has to suffer through the lesser works. Once the right image is framed nicely and hung, it gets your attention.

Try it sometime by pulling out a photo album (the forerunner of digital images on a computer monitor) to show someone. They nearly always groan. But present them w/ a nicely framed print of your best work hung in an appropriate place and they will look at it.
 
Keith said:
Over the last couple of years there have been quite a lot of 'death of photography' posts here at RFF ... usually triggered by the type of article the OP linked to.

Photography for me is something I do that gives a level of personal satisfaction that I don't get from anything else. This apparent dilution has zero affect on me and I don't see that changing.
Click to expand...



Keith,

Couldn't agree more with you on "personal satisfaction" +1
 
Was it Mark Twain that said, and I'm paraphrasing, the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated? I think that applies here.
 
The most disturbing line I read in that article was: "Upload your photos to Google’s Cloud and the program will sort through them, remove duplicates, pick out the best ones, tag them, build albums of your vacations . . ."

So now Google thinks they have created an algorithm that can pick the "best" photos out of a group you submit. When I think of everything that goes into a "best" photo, and how much subjectivity is involved, I don't see how this is possible.
 
What is happening in photography is pretty much paralleled by that taking place in all the other media affected by digitalization. Things become easier but not necessarily more interesting or valuable. I was lucky to get in on the ground floor of the microstock business, which paid for a lot of photography equipment over the years. But this industry is about to eat itself. Shutterstock has well over 80 million images, swamping any individual collection. Now, various entities are giving images away.

When I read the article the effect on me was to make me want to replace my digital gear with maybe a Hasselblad and pursue an expensive and time-consuming course only meaningful to me.

But, I'm too lazy.
 
And you call this kind of article as "interesting"?:

"Google, Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google, Google, Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google, Google, Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google, Google, Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google, Google, Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google, Google, Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google, Google, Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google, Google, Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google, Google, Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google, Google, Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google,Google, Google, free software."


How photography could be dead if one company is giving away software, which they decided not to support anymore? Where are plenty of other software vendors and it has nothing to do with photography as part of people regular life activities.

How photography could be declared dead if more and more people are taking pictures (photographing) with mobile phones and sharing them? Maybe not so much on Google Picasa Web albums and Google blogs. But if nothing really happening on those two it doesn't mean what where are no choices where photography is alive.

As of now photography is more alive than ever. It is not specialty trade anymore where it was related to chemical processing, darkroom and exposure knowledge or computer, software, ink jet printing knowledge. Now photography is fully open to creativity without technical limits. Take the picture with mobile phone, without caring of technical details, apply art filter even before taking picture or by single stroke after it was taken and share with whom you want without dealing with clueless snobs a.k.a. photography experts or even Google 🙂
Or you could also go to the pharmacy or almost any general store and get instant film camera and be totally internet, computer and digitally independent. Like old fashioned artist, photographer.
 
Keith said:
Over the last couple of years there have been quite a lot of 'death of photography' posts here at RFF ... usually triggered by the type of article the OP linked to.

Photography for me is something I do that gives a level of personal satisfaction that I don't get from anything else. This apparent dilution has zero affect on me and I don't see that changing.
Click to expand...


Well put, Keith. My thoughts exactly!!
 
the title says: "We Will Photograph Everything and Look at Nothing" that is, taking photos is becoming more important than direct perception. Reality only is perceived as such when it is photographed. It could be the end of 'be here now', not of photography which is taking on new dimensions.
Last week I had been driving around Bali, played tour guide to a close friend. Countryside around mostly was stunning but my friend's eye had been glued on his phone permanentally checking out our position on google map. It was helpful, a few times he told me on time where to turn, but I really thought that he was missing out.
 
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