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Will photography die a slow death?

Vince Doran

Vince Doran

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Just got asked by a school kid...."what will photography be like in 50yrs?"
Got me thinking as to whether it will still (pardon the pun) be around, I'm guessing that, as far as know it will be dead and we will be taking frame grabs from high speed motion cameras, I suppose it is still photography in a way but not the same as clicking one shot off or using a "slow" 8-10fps.
 
I guess it's already dead after loading some shots after typing the OP.....uploaded some pics to a photography site and was immediately told/suggested to clone this and crop here, de-saturate, add contrast, sharpen, a little curve here and there would help etc.etc. that is not photography IMO but "digital image creation"
Not complaining about getting the best image you can but I don't think it should be called photography anymore.
 
Its a mixed bag. With digital cameras more people than ever before are shooting images, but it has changed the landscape especially for low and mid level working pros.
The tools keep getting better and the human hunger for meaningful imagery will never end. There may be a sea of garbage, but there will also still be beautifully composed artfully rendered images created by skilled artists.
If you think of photography as paper prints, well much of that may change to electronic displays. How many people have digital frames on their desks these days instead of the old print of their family? These devices are still in their infancy.
50 years? Who knows.
At the rate we are going the human race could be extinct by then.
 
David Rasberry said:
How many people have digital frames on their desks these days instead of the old print of their family? These devices are still in their infancy.
50 years? Who knows.
At the rate we are going the human race could be extinct by then.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that digital frames will take over the world and destroy humanity?
 
Silver halides and darkrooms are essentially dead right now, but images will always be made one way or another.
 
Jim Retar said:
Are you saying that digital frames will take over the world and destroy humanity?
Click to expand...

No, we will likely destroy the biosphere to the point of collapse and disappear along with most every other form of life that currently exists. No food, no air, no water.
 
Vince Doran said:
I guess it's already dead after loading some shots after typing the OP.....uploaded some pics to a photography site and was immediately told/suggested to clone this and crop here, de-saturate, add contrast, sharpen, a little curve here and there would help etc.etc. that is not photography IMO but "digital image creation"
Not complaining about getting the best image you can but I don't think it should be called photography anymore.
Click to expand...


I think that is looking at it from a singular prospective. I see photography as in evolution of certain artistic techniques utilising different technologies to accomplish the same task. From paintings to lithographs factions turned and walked further forward, leaving some on that singular path. A lot of people say that figurative painting is dead, but it is far from dead, its is however either studied by students or by a faction of artists who gain inspiration from this style of art. On a microcosmic level all artistic levels will be practised for pleasure and art.

Photography sites feed the masses. I am a photographer. I do not snap. My girlfriends over the years have verifiable annuals of photos taken from the times we went out, or holiday's or special occasions. I don't. I have maybe half a dozen photos of my social life over the past thirty years. I went to my best friends wedding a month or so ago and didn't take one single photograph. My artistic side of photography is very different from capturing life which is what my partners are doing.

Though photography sites offer these ways to crudely adjust the pictures who would seriously use them...no-one who was a photographer. On any level. How many people who consider themselves photographers use Photoshop or similar applications as digital dark rooms. How many people would print out a copy of a photo and china-graph over it the areas that are to be dodged and burned, exposure shifted. Would spend ten hours working on a single picture. Not many people, out of the millions who still consider themselves photographers. I think the form is so widely used by so many people, I am sure you will agree the act of photography is not necessarily the same as the art or craft. There are far too many presets. This is similarly an issue with filmmakers. The time of Magic Bullet Looks. Whilst they are fantastic presets, they need to be treated as starting points or even just to analyse what processes are going into creating a certain look. I am sure there are some people out there who will just slap a look on some footage in a similar way to the settings on that photography website...then call the footage graded.

So I think in point of fact whether photography is completely overtaken by motion or whether like Jeff pointed out images are extracted direct from the neocortex. This still along the same artistic path as the photograhers, painter, lithographers of the past and present.
 
Vince Doran said:
I guess it's already dead after loading some shots after typing the OP.....uploaded some pics to a photography site and was immediately told/suggested to clone this and crop here, de-saturate, add contrast, sharpen, a little curve here and there would help etc.etc. that is not photography IMO but "digital image creation"
Not complaining about getting the best image you can but I don't think it should be called photography anymore.
Click to expand...

Post work has always been an integral part of photography; Ansel Adams' own Zone system took into account everything in the process, film stock, development, dodging, burning, paper contrast etc. It's never been solely about the bit that goes 'click'.

For my money, artists will always want to create "stills". They did when they lived in caves and they will when they have electrodes shoved up their noses...
 
I agree Martin. Artists will always create images with passion. Changes in technology do not change people's desire and ability to use excellent craftsmanship to create fine art. Injection molding did not kill sculpture. And photography did not stop artists from painting on canvas. Artists will always use the most appropriate craft to create the images the wish to express. Creativity is at the heart of the human spirit.
 
Richard Foster said:
I agree Martin. Artists will always create images with passion. Changes in technology do not change people's desire and ability to use excellent craftsmanship to create fine art. Injection molding did not kill sculpture. And photography did not stop artists from painting on canvas. Artists will always use the most appropriate craft to create the images the wish to express. Creativity is at the heart of the human spirit.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup:

Well said, as always.
 
If you truly research and see what goes into a fine art photo I think you might want to revise your statement. All of the manipulations you mention have been present in the art of photography since its inception. The only difference is it done on a computer now instead of by hand with light, material choices and chemicals. Better yet, pick up a copy of Ansel Adams: The Print and see what he went through to make his images. You can also stop by and read The Online Photographer one of the few blogs where print making is celebrated and revered on a regular basis. Today as yesterday What you see is rarely what you started with ;)

Vince Doran said:
I guess it's already dead after loading some shots after typing the OP.....uploaded some pics to a photography site and was immediately told/suggested to clone this and crop here, de-saturate, add contrast, sharpen, a little curve here and there would help etc.etc. that is not photography IMO but "digital image creation"
Not complaining about getting the best image you can but I don't think it should be called photography anymore.
Click to expand...
 
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I dunno I've taken and printed more stills with my iPhone 4 in the past year than I have with 'cameras' in years. There's a lot more skill in snapping the essential moment than spraying a moment with frames and picking the best one in post. That art hopefully will never go away for the folks that know the difference. That said I would always love a bit less shutter lag...

Noah
 
I dunno I've taken and printed more stills with my iPhone 4 in the past year than I have with 'cameras' in years. There's a lot more skill in snapping the essential moment than spraying a moment with frames and picking the best one in post. That art hopefully will never go away for the folks that know the difference. That said I would always love a bit less shutter lag...

Noah
 
Pulling stills from motion will increase in use because the motion technology keeps improving to allow it... but it will never entirely replace the act of lining up a still photo and taking a single picture. It's a different act of creation, figuring out how a single image can say everything you want to say in it, distilling an idea or event into one frame. There's a fundamental difference between capturing / reproducing motion in a moving image and freezing or suggesting motion in a still image. For example, when shooting fast action where you want the frozen still image to suggest tremendous speed, you may opt for a long shutter speed to get as much motion blur as possible in the frame... but when shooting for a moving image, you may opt for a shorter shutter speed to increase the crispness of the motion as it plays out, making it seem faster.

Not to mention, even as resolution increases for motion work (thanks to Epic) some people are still going to want to shoot a still at the highest resolution possible, making the data loads pretty intensive if you were shooting 24X a second.
 
My Son (freshman in high school) just started a photo class and they are making him shoot and print film. He showed me a test print that he made yesterday and it was grossly over printed. I think it is cool he is doing analog photography but at the same time I feel conflicted as this antiquated form of making prints does not seem to be necessary for him. When I studied sensitometry in the 70s we plotted our control curves and made adjustments in exposure and printing based on that. Now with photoshop and various other grading applications it can be done so easily in the computer. I shoot almost exclusively on digital mediums now except for motion. Nothing has died or is dead in photography, it has evolved since its inception, and I'm happy to get away from all the chemistry.
 
I dunno. There is nothing quite like getting down and dirty with the chemicals. ;)
 
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