Something I just thought about after reading all the new posts after my first one is that photography today is being marketed as just a gimmick that anyone can do. And it didn't start with the smartphones either.
Anyone remember the Andre Agassi advertisements for the new Canon Rebel 35mm SLR auto-everything cameras? Just point and push the shutter button, the camera will do everything else for you! Well, except for composition and subject selection. Even loading the film was reduced to just making sure the leader was extended far enough to catch on the auto take-up spool (Yeah, I know, it was an update of the FT QL technology).
But the marketer's point was it's so easy now. And with an SLR! While this may have created a new group of people who supposed themselves photographers, it still helped some who were intimidated at the thought of having to learn so much just to take a photo. It also gave them the equipment that was a step above their P&S cameras with the ability to change lenses, and use longer or shorter focal lengths. The Canon Rebel freed them from all the guesswork involved in the act of taking a photo so they could concentrate on the creation of art.
Later on, hopefully these new creatives would then delve into what a lot of us had to learn from the start way back when with our manual cameras and lenses. That's when the manufacturers knew they had them on the hook, and they'd soon be buying more capable cameras and lenses.
So the cameras built in to smartphones today was the hook to get buy-in from the masses. Your phone was now so much more than a communication device. Besides its computer capabilities (which wasn't enough to sell the phones to everyone), by adding the camera, and making incremental improvements to the technology, the phone makers now had a viable market. And everybody had to have one!
Then along came the blossoming of social media. You had all this capability now to take photos, you needed to have somewhere to show them, and share with the world. And it could all be done straight from the phone, no more transferring to another device to be able to upload to a SocMed service. Even instantly if you wanted it to (thus the proliferation of all those crappy shots that don't get edited before they are foisted on to the masses).
All the while, everyone is just so blissfully posting pics of their pets, kids, cars, breakfast, lunch, dinner, stupid neighbors, good friends, dumb stunts, selfies, etc., etc., etc. And the new barons of the Internet are now commercializing everything you do with your smartphone. Even at times claiming that your photos are their photos to do what they please with them (remember Flickr tried to pull a fast one by selling prints of any CC designated photos on the servers without permission from, or monetary compensation to the photographer). Newsrooms across the nation have depleted their staffs of photographers, depending on all these social media outlets to glean pictures for their articles and reports. Magazines such as Sports Illustrated have done the same, and only deal with freelancers now (now everyone is a freelancer!). Complete events such as weddings are being shot on phones. No need to hire a photographer anymore, some cousin with the latest model of phone can do the job for free.
So in a way, there are aspects of photography that are passing into the beyond, and in too many places, which could give one the feeling that in general photography is on it's last leg. But as long as there are cameras in the hands of capable photographers (film, digital, phone, doesn't matter), photography will live on. It might not be in the form we are comfortable with. You may have to shuffle through a lot of chaff to get to the good stuff. But it will be there. And just like every other generation, it will be celebrated by the last and the next, and used in its many forms, archaic or modern.
PF
