The end of "Photography" as we know it?

[Morca007]

As has been said, we are a minority, in that we care what the photos look like. For the average person, it doesn't matter whether or not it's a good photo of the game, simply being a visual marker of the event is enough. The same can be said for most photojournalism these days.
We live in such an exposed world that no longer are the photos in the paper a window into some other place, where we need the perfect shot to translate emotion. One can see the same thing happening to writing in newspapers; Why write a half page expose, when an RSS headline gets the message across?

It all relates back to the idea of faster being better.

Whether or not it really is, well, I'm sure we're all a bit skeptical.

 

[Keith]

When I bought my M8 I thought I was embracing technology ... in reality all I was doing was capturing a dinosaur! 😛

 

[Edward Felcher]

Why are you all so afraid of what device captures the image?

Barnack was poo-pooed for his crummy little camera with tiny negatives.

I'd like a device that captures EVERYTHING, 3D, all dimensions.

Every new technological development is a potential blessing.

 

[RML]

The banal is the stuff of everyday life. Why scoff at it?

 

[amateriat]

The banal is the stuff of everyday life. Why scoff at it?

Because, in the main (and IMO), photojournalism has been stuck in the flatlands for some time, with nary a hill or valley in sight. (Of course, this goes as much for the business side of things as the creative.)

Yes, it's late, and I'm just a tad ornery at the moment. 🙄


- Barrett

 

[RayPA]

Yesterday I was looking at the photos from the news covering of the French Open and the NBA Finals (for those of us in the US).

The quality of the photos are of course very good and striking. But ... they also reminds me of the Pause button on a DVD or Tivo. Albeit a *very* clean paused frame.

Many people have labeled digital shots to be "sterile" or "clean", but that's not wha't bothering me...

What *is* bothering me is where would photography be in 2-10 years from now?

It will only take one video-guy who brings this camera to a well-known venue (which I know will happen in the very near future): http://www.red.com (hint: Take a look at the Gallery section and see the stills produced from this movie camera... and you'd wish you're sitting down...)

Then "photography" will be reduced to sitting behind an editing workstation and *choosing* which video frame to be included in headlines... or exhibitions... or galleries... etc.

Why would anyone hire a photographer when a video-jockey can produce the same exact image?

I'm sure a lot of photographers who jumped ship to digital are wondering about this... what do you guys think?

I realize that all this makes for an interesting read and discussion, and I don't mean to sound jaded or rude, but my first response to this was "so?" What does it matter?

There seems to be this aversion to anything that tramples the sacred bourgeois concepts "we" hold dear. Things like "decisive moment" and this romantic image of the sole photographer working a happening and capturing the one single defining moment with a fully manual film camera. It doesn't exist. Manual film camera? We love them, but come on! Decisive moment? It's more like decisive momemts. What's the decisive moment in the Zapruder film, or is that whole film the decisive moment? What would it have taken one person with a manual film camera to capture the suspense, the impact of the bullet, Jackie grabbing at the pieces of her husband's head as the car speeds away? Who could have anticipated that happening? Only a film camera could have captured all that.

I'm not saying a still photographer couldn't have worked that happening and come away with something. The famous shot of Oswald being killed exiting the Texas prison IIRC was a still shot, but if you've ever seen the footage of that happening there were probably a hundred photographers all shooting simultaneously, so really... 🙂



.

 

[VinceC]

I'm not saying a still photographer couldn't have worked that happening and come away with something. The famous shot of Oswald being killed exiting the Texas prison IIRC was a still shot, but if you've ever seen the footage of that happening there were probably a hundred photographers all shooting simultaneously, so really...

The Zapruder example is a good one. So many classic news photos are really the result of luck in timing. So the modern news videographer, shooting 24 or 30 frames per second has much less to worry about.

The comments about cinema-quality video gear being too unwieldy and costly also miss the point ... the issue is that daily news photography doesn't need more than 1 megapixel to be effective, and small digital video cameras can now handle this kind of work easily.

I just saw Spiderman 3 at a large-screen IMAX theater. There was a noticeable difference in the greater resolution of the live-action scenes versus the lower resolution of the CGI scenes. Average viewer would never notice, but with IMAX's 6-story screen, it was pretty obvious.

 

[Morca007]

I'd like a device that captures EVERYTHING, 3D, all dimensions.

Beyond even that, I think, the ability to capture essence, emotion, the feel of the moment. If you could figure out how to bottle a feeling, you would never want for anything.

 

[sepiareverb]

It's the 'dumbing-down' of quality that gets me. I see it in students work all the time. Fast is what matters now more than quality. If a video camera is faster it's better doesn't seem like a good approach to take about something that has traditionally been approached from a more considered direction. I've rushed to AP with the film, so I know that speed matters, but sometimes that film wasn't picked because the other guy had a better image- but nowadays with everything being so instantaneous I myself feel that something has been lost. First is all that seems to matter a lot. Yeah, I'm a stick in the mud. Just use me to stir.

 

[RayPA]

Wrong. That's animation, trick, 3D renderings - everything combined into the final footage, timed to the fraction of a second.

Are you really so naive to believe this is film or do you just pretend to not knowing better?

All I need is a laser beam which will be crossed by a bullet a couple of centimeters before it will hit the melon, and I will deliver a nice shot of the exploding melon with the bullet leading the debris... captured analog on a 6x9 slide of course.

Or more complicated: an animation with Cinema 4D (=completely digital).

the lack of smiley faces in your post is frightening











😉

 

[jan normandale]

this is the best thread ever

 

[Film dino]

"Years ago someone predicted: the computers will lead to paperless offices. I'm still waiting for this to happen, and I think as long as we won't have paperless toilets we won't see paperless offices."

Nice one about toilets... 🙂
& I wholeheartedly agree with your comment on paperless offices: people still prefer to read from a print-off than off a screen, at least I do.

David

 

[varjag]

A lot of "decisive moment" argument is thrown around. Just to remind that HCB, who coined the term, used it to denote highest aesthetic point of a situation (as perceived by artist), *not* culmination of some event, however important it is.

You can have a footage of aliens landing or Elvis meeting Osama at G8 summit, but that per se doesn't warrant a single frame to be "decisive moment" per HCB. If you flip through his photos, very few of them are interesting in any way because of event they depict.

 

[VinceC]

A lot of "decisive moment" argument is thrown around. Just to remind that HCB, who coined the term, used it to denote highest aesthetic point of a situation (as perceived by artist), *not* culmination of some event, however important it is.

That's generally true. But news and sports photography does also rely on the "decisive" moment because the photographer will, at best, get one single shot into print. So long before the book "The Decisive Moment" appeared, news photographers were expected to come back from an assignment with "THE" shot, a single image that sums up the event or, in the case of sports, a single image that shows the moment the game was won -- the winning run, shot, goal, etc.

Cartier-Bresson expanded this idea into the realm of all serious photography.

 

[sepiareverb]

.....Another reason why I don't think the film based photography will ever die: who is going to store all the data for the future in which formats and on what devices?

I don't think anyone is going to. I truly believe that besides the databases of newspapers and magazines that much of ordinary life of the past 10 and next 20 years will be lost to the people of the future. At the school graduation last week almost everyone was snapping away with a digital camera (then checking to see if they got the picture , and so missing the next 30 seconds of life). These images will not survive, nor will any of the other images oridinary people take every day. I have images of my great-grandmother, my grandparents and my parents taken 90 years ago, 75 years ago, 50 years ago (etc.). These are wonderful objects. Perhaps I'm overly sentimental for these modern days, but I do think that the enjoyment I've gotten from sitting down with my grandmother at the kitchen table and dumping out a big envelope of old pictures and hearing the stories they kindled is something that shouldn't get lost to our kids and grandkids in our rush to make everything faster or easier. And actually the only things I find easier about this digital age is the gathering of information and dashing off a quick note to someone far away. Using a thermometer, making a phone call, warming up coffee, pumping gas- all these things have become more difficult for the end user, turned into a barrage of beeps and button presses where a simple lever and gear train or basic physical law can do the job more simply and clearly.
Damn I feel old sometimes.

 

[sepiareverb]

A local non-profit arts organization just was given a building by the state, with the understanding that they would renovate, but only after documenting the space as it was in archival photographs. For the state that meant silver prints. I was asked to give a quote, and said I would shoot it for free, just for the chance to get in there and shoot it, and provide the prints at a nominal rate. The director was furious that she couldn't just go in and make some snaps with her 6 mp digital point & shoot- they were going to have to actually hire someone to do this. Last I heard she was fighting them on this requirement- I never did hear the outcome.

 

[antiquark]

I truly believe that besides the databases of newspapers and magazines that much of ordinary life of the past 10 and next 20 years will be lost to the people of the future.

Have we entered the digital dark ages?

FWIW, I print many of my digital pics so my wife can organize them in her photo albums. I wonder how many people never print, but just use a computer monitor (or worse, the camera LCD) to view and share their images?

Maybe a backlash will occur when a critical mass of hard drives fail, or flash cards get corrupt, or CDROMs fade. The painful experience of losing years of pictures will happen more and more, until digital is seen as an unreliable medium.

I can't see people in general returning to film, though.

 

[Edward Felcher]

I go to lots of flea markets.

There are literally millions of personal photos thrown in the garbage, destroyed, sold, discarded.

Precious family albums, some more than 150 years old, sell for a pittance.

The idea of permanence (or that most people's images are worth preserving), is ludicrous.

Have we entered the digital dark ages?

FWIW, I print many of my digital pics so my wife can organize them in her photo albums. I wonder how many people never print, but just use a computer monitor (or worse, the camera LCD) to view and share their images?

Maybe a backlash will occur when a critical mass of hard drives fail, or flash cards get corrupt, or CDROMs fade. The painful experience of losing years of pictures will happen more and more, until digital is seen as an unreliable medium.

I can't see people in general returning to film, though.

 

[antiquark]

There are literally millions of personal photos thrown in the garbage, destroyed, sold, discarded.

There's a big difference between you deciding to trash your pics vs a faulty hard drive deciding for you.

How many times have you heard people agonizing about their photo albums lost in a fire or flood? Lots.

 

[VinceC]

FWIW, I print many of my digital pics so my wife can organize them in her photo albums. I wonder how many people never print,...

The printer, ink and paper are also important here. Early inkjets had terrible longevity. For that matter, Kodak color prints from the 1960s and '70s also had terrible longevity, and many have faded.