Will photography die a slow death?

[Gavin Greenwalt]

In 50 years if photography is used beyond 'documentation' you'll probably be doing it virtually.

In 50 years we should have the tech to capture in 3D everything within view (and some that isn't). Streetview will be 100% photo-realistic and pervasive. If you went there, microscopic pinhole imagers in your clothing will have captured an updated volume of exactly what it looked like while you were there so if there was a sunset that was exactly how you wanted it, or exact (non procedurally generated) tree that you liked with just the level of foliage you saw then you could use that. But you could also 'wander' down a side street someone else had already captured that you didn't have time to explore but with your day's sky and lighting.

You will still probably have a device though for framing, but it'll be mostly used for geotagging a position/time you wanted to capture as a reminder. Assuming we don't have perfect memories by then thanks to implants which allow us to write documents and notes to personal wikis online.

 

[David Rasberry]

I dunno. There is nothing quite like getting down and dirty with the chemicals.

I have an antique Daguerreotype in my collection. The first practical high quality photo process. Very unique and beautiful image quality. Always wanted to give that process a try, but talk about dangerous chemistry. Probably have to file an environmental impact statement with the EPA for each shot.

 

[Tim Hole]

I have an antique Daguerreotype in my collection. The first practical high quality photo process. Very unique and beautiful image quality. Always wanted to give that process a try, but talk about dangerous chemistry. Probably have to file an environmental impact statement with the EPA for each shot.

How well sealed is the box? Not sure your body would react very well to mercury vapour. That being said isn't there a cold mercury process that can be done nowadays? Lets see bromide UV radiation and mercury vapour. They would probably arrest you for terrorism.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

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 find that having some first-hand experience with the b&w negative film process is useful in thinking about how images are physically fixed/captured so to speak. Simple concepts regarding density, gamma, etc. as it related to exposure are easy to SEE with a piece of film and have their digital counterparts. Besides, knowledge in general is useful to acquire, old or not, you never know how it will impact your life later -- if someone wanted to study ancient Greek or philosophy, I wouldn't say he was wasting his time. And it's not like your son doesn't have to learn how to expose a digital image eventually, or get it to look correct in post, and exposure, to some extent, is exposure.

I learned by shooting Super-8 film, my rationale at the time was that if I could make THAT look good, I'd be that much farther ahead once I started working with bigger formats, where the technical quality was much easier to achieve. Mastering a difficult process, though it may seem unnecessary in today's digital age with all of its user-friendliness, develops discipline, patience, and precision of thought and action... all of which are useful skills later in life.

Now obviously he's going to have to learn all the digital tools and processes, I'm just saying that an intro into "classic" artmaking processes, technologies, and techniques, is not a waste of time.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

I dunno. There is nothing quite like getting down and dirty with the chemicals.

I got down and dirty with quite a few chemicals in my day. I'm just glad I lived through it...

 

[David Rasberry]

How well sealed is the box? Not sure your body would react very well to mercury vapour. That being said isn't there a cold mercury process that can be done nowadays? Lets see bromide UV radiation and mercury vapour. They would probably arrest you for terrorism.

It is sealed under glass in some kind of molded plastic like original frame box, very small, about 3 x 4 inches. I have forgotten what that early resin process was called.

Yeah, you have your basic silver electroplating job to start with the hot iodine bromine vapor bath to sensitize the plate followed by hot mercury vapor to develop a direct positive original, with a gold chloride wash finish to enhance contrast and fix the image. No visible grain to the image at all except for polishing imperfections in the silver plate.

 

[Ethan Cooper]

In 50 years...

...allow us to write documents and notes to personal wikis online.

Online? Just a guess here but the idea & term 'online' will be antiquated & surpassed by something else in 50 years.

I do think that even in 50 years there will be a place where a single still frame or moment is needed. This single frame/moment will be pulled & manipulated from some type of global capture system that is independent from all creative choices such as camera direction, shutter speed, focal length (within reason), aperture, focus point, white balance, ISO, you name it.

It's very possible that this single moment in time will be 3D/holographic & the viewer will be free to snoop around the frame & explore the image if enabled by the content originator hence a shift in terminology will be needed & we'll no longer refer to an image as a single frame but rather something more akin to a moment.

Someone please feel free to name give this new image technique a name for me. Not a picture, not a still frame, but a .... what?

 

[Michael Olsen]

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.

And yet, somewhere, a sound pierces the stillness. The repetitive mirror slap of a 5D Mark II, still timelapsing.

 

[Austin Glass]

I agree with using analog processes as a baseline for teaching photography. You can look at it as a hands-on historical class if you want, but I think it should be taught as a primer for digital photography. It forces you to slow down and pick your shots carefully.

 

[Tim Hole]

And yet, somewhere, a sound pierces the stillness. The repetitive mirror slap of a 5D Mark II, still timelapsing.

Ha Ha! Brilliant

Probably belongs to Tom.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Online? Just a guess here but the idea & term 'online' will be antiquated & surpassed by something else in 50 years.

Onliner? Online is a state of being not a brand name. The internet will still exist. We aren't going to replace it with the Internator. Sure it probably won't be TCP/IP but we'll still be uploading data to an interconnected network of servers and clients in vaguely a similar process to today.

Someone please feel free to name give this new image technique a name for me. Not a picture, not a still frame, but a .... what?

Tag?

I don't think we'll name it any different. Even in the virtual world we still have "cameras" and "lights" and "shots" and "lenses".

But yes, in the future there'll no longer be a device dedicated to capturing light. Everything will be meta-data, including the camera and subject.

 

[Joe G.]

Or perhaps the only photography will be the 24/7 surveillance of the techno-fascist state. Head down. Work harder.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

I find that having some first-hand experience with the b&w negative film process is useful in thinking about how images are physically fixed/captured so to speak. Simple concepts regarding density, gamma, etc. as it related to exposure are easy to SEE with a piece of film and have their digital counterparts. Besides, knowledge in general is useful to acquire, old or not, you never know how it will impact your life later -- if someone wanted to study ancient Greek or philosophy, I wouldn't say he was wasting his time. And it's not like your son doesn't have to learn how to expose a digital image eventually, or get it to look correct in post, and exposure, to some extent, is exposure.

I learned by shooting Super-8 film, my rationale at the time was that if I could make THAT look good, I'd be that much farther ahead once I started working with bigger formats, where the technical quality was much easier to achieve. Mastering a difficult process, though it may seem unnecessary in today's digital age with all of its user-friendliness, develops discipline, patience, and precision of thought and action... all of which are useful skills later in life.

Now obviously he's going to have to learn all the digital tools and processes, I'm just saying that an intro into "classic" artmaking processes, technologies, and techniques, is not a waste of time.

I think What I'm saying is... I learned photography from my dad who learned from his dad who learned from his dad. Over those four generations the process was basically the same. Expose the negative, process the negative and print the negative. The entire process is so different now I'm not sure going into the dark room is still valid. I can't believe I'm saying this, it kind of scares me. I never learned how to process daguerreotypes, tintypes or other older processes and yet I feel I have a pretty good understanding of photography. A couple of years ago if someone told me I would be saying this I would have told them they needed professional help. As long as the prints are archival maybe the process is not so important.

:badputer:

 

[Kristians Luhaers]

Well, it depends ...
Of course the rhythm of our life is demanding to do everything faster and faster, so maybe there wouldn't be a moment to stop for taking a picture anymore. And typical Japanese tourists wouldn't even bother to go out from their coaches to do what they do with their image acquiring equipment normally... Maybe that’s the future.
But for sure there will be some 'dinosaurs' with analogue cameras and film rolls, even in 50 years from now... Because photography is not only the act of taking and printing photographs, it is far more than just 'snapping' a moment. My cinematography teacher called it "painting with light".
Tomorrow’s photography depends on how we will teach our new generation. I don't know what kind of tools my son or grandson will be using in 50 years to 'capture a moment', but recently I dig up old Nikon FM2 and together with couple rolls of b&w film gave to my son who showed the interest to study the photography. Now I’m about to create a darkroom and restore my old Durst enlarger too... Maybe I’m naive, but I couldn’t agree more with them who think - this is the right way to teach the exact meaning of photography. If you do with your own bare hands without any digital intermediator, you are putting there a piece of your soul. This old analog way of making a picture creates that intimacy which is necessary for young person to understand the craft of photographer. Then any tools - analog or digital, high speed or low speed, motion or still, could be used to do that, but this understanding comes only from real darkroom experience.
Well, on the other hand 'snapping' and 'sharing' the moments and places is a wonderful thing too. IMHO Google Earth is one of the greatest inventions in last decade. We could make a virtual tour through places where we probably never will be and see how beautiful, small and fragile is our planet. This definitely will continue to develop in 'I-don’t-know-what' form. Unfortunately the virtual life taking over real life very fast and deeply impacting our habits, so probably in 50 years only digitally enhanced human surrogates will walk around in open spaces, who know.
Well, there is lot of scenarios. Future depends on what choices we make today.
So, let's create it better! (With help of photography!)


_________________
Kristians Luhaers
Producer
Screen Vision
www.screenvision.lv

 

[Dan Hudgins]

If you can get chemicals...

If you can get chemicals...

With all the fuss over "terror" its getting very hard to purchase chemicals for photography, and that will probably be true more so in the future to the point when you cannot get what is needed.

When I was 7 years old, I saw a neighbor boy "pan" roll film an a soup bowl.

So I went down to a local photo shop and tried to purchase a Kodak "tri-chem-pack" that has pre-measured developer, stop bath, and fixer powers in it. The man at the store told me that I needed to bring my "Mother" down to buy it for me, and so I did.

Today, Boys cannot bring their Mother to get what is needed in most cities. And soon even adults will not be able to get what is needed since there will not be photographic chemical re-sellers. As an individual, major chemical companies will no longer sell you chemicals, period, at any price.

When I was a kid, we would get little bottles of chemicals from a department store that has re-stock bottles for chemistry sets, and get Sodium Nitrate from the local drug store, to make small rockets and things. That is a thing of the past, Boys that could become the next Linus Pauling, who first saw someone's chemistry set and became enthralled by chemistry, will never get the chance to learn about such things when they are young enough to become one of the contributors.

==

I don't see any future for color film, its just too hard to make in small volumes and the need for syntheses of special chemicals needed will end, so it will no longer be possable. As you have seen with the end of KodaChrome from Kodak stopping making the needed chemicals, I think they also quit the chemicals for dye transfer print making (both still and movie)(?).

You will "always" be able to make slow < ISO 25 still plates for your view camera and make printing paper as was done in the past if you can get special iron free gelatin, but who will make photographic grade gelatin when industrial production of photographic media ends? If you use food grade gelatin you can get spots in the images from iron bits, so the results are not usable, and without gelatin, your limited to paper negatives of much lower speed, or using the "wet plate" process.

==

You can process black and white film in a mixture of Vitamin-C and baking soda (Sodium Bicarbonate) with some washing soda or lye added, if you over-expose about one stop.

It may be possable to "fix" the images (if not clear them) by long soaking in table salt solution, with maybe some ammonia added, although if you can get Hypo crystals they would be the choice.

Vineagar can be used as stop bath and as stabilizer solution.

So if you have a few rolls of film around you may be able to get an image on it with things you can purchase in a super market or health food store, then scan the images off before the film fades (keeping it in the dark as long as you can because without hypo the film will not clear and strong light will gray the silver bromide that is in, its called stabilization processing and was used for some fast press work or photographic copy machines were speed was more important that permanent results, in this case, the best you can do with a long soak in salt solution and a rince in vinigar is to stabilize the images so you can dry the film or photographic paper in the dark, then scan it once or make a quick print, but without Hypo the print will not do much good unless you can make a Cyanotype or Gum-Bichromate print which can be fixed in just water rince, but getting needed chemicals to make those may be impossable in the future, its aleady getting very hard.

==

Its very sad to me, because you can get images with photographic methods that are nothing like Digital Images, not perfect, but artful in a way that "robotic" vision will never be...

 

[Adam Eden]

I am turning 39 in a couple of weeks and my 79 year old father has won the Hassleblad world masters a couple of times in the 80's and Is a world famous surfing photographer.

My point being and i quote my father "Back in the day (1950's - 1960's) sports photography was a lucky dip, I shot on a minolta SR-1 (one of the first 35mm SLR cameras made) with a (forgot the name of the lens my father can tell you as he still has it) 600MM lens that was fast at the time at F11! and every time I developed a roll (B+W) i hoped there was something there, it was a lot of guess work. These days everyone is a photographer and half the shots people take are great. Not good but great to them, and thats what matters, someone seeing a photo and having an emotional reaction to it whether its a positive or negative emotion. Photographs put meaning in peoples lives"

I have an almost 12yr old son now and he loves going to Poppy's house and helping him print B+W prints on Ilford paper thats probably 20yrs old now and Is still a guestimate (One of my favourite sayings) if is going to print ok.

The shame is that you cant buy photographic B+W paper or chemicals anymore so once my fathers home made lab that he has had most of his life has run out thats it.

It is nice to see my son having the opportunity to experience this though..

When i was his age i hated being locked in a dark room with dim red light for hours on end.

I especially hated joining 16mm film and helping my dad edit on a steinbeck machine and the smell of acetone!!

Now i look back and see how lucky I actually was learning how to shoot/ frame and edit all before puberty.

But it must be in the blood as my son has a very good eye for framing and you can't teach that!

So in 50 years time??? Who cares ill be dead by then!

 

[George Wilcox]

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.

Kodak just announced the end of Kodachrome with the processing of the last batch, so I guess the answer is, it will all be digital. That film stuff was just tooooo environmentally problematic!

 

[Patrick Tresch]

That film stuff was just tooooo environmentally problematic!

Who cares? Money rules...

Pat

 

[Sam Taylor]

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 100% agree with capturing the essential moment. Although for many projects capturing the exact frame will be useful, but it is a time consuming process, and so I don't see the death of traditional cameras, which take single pictures. It is simpler, for one thing, for many users.

 

[Debbie Fischer]

I come from a fashion photography background but have, in the last five years been moving into shooting films. I like the idea, especially in fashion of being able to use continuous lighting and to shoot in motion, then tagging certain moments as I shoot. I agree that hosing the scene with thousands of stills might be counter productive but I shoot in bursts now anyway and its only an extension from that.