Is Photography As We Know It Dying?

[Vtec44]

I think the question should be is the business of photography dying?

 

[Original katomi]

I think the question should be is the business of photography dying?

From what I have read and from speaking to people who do photography for a living. It’s getting harder, as said above firms are getting their staff with a camera.
So yes the business side of photography dying, and like so many other things people will look round and wonder where all the pro photographers have gone. They will have forgotten that they got their mate with a camera do a job for them cheaper. It has happened in so many businesses

 

[Vtec44]

Yeah photography itself will never die but it's evolving as new technologies emerge just like the transition from analog to digital. The business of photography has changed a lot and client expectations are also changing with it. Clients are moving from one trend to another. However, like any other art form you just have to find the right people for your business. There's a market for painting, a market for digital art, and a market for various different forms of photography.

 

[smoke665]

The idea that a photo is substandard if people like it, well if people like it, how can it be substandard?

By and large there's little thought that goes into pressing a "like" button, and many times especially on social media, the descision to hit "like" has little to do with the post. Sometimes it's an unconscious action, like saying "good morning" to a stranger on the street. You don't consider the person, or have any thought as to how their day might be going. Sometimes on the social media network, people "like" a post just as a way to maintain a relationship, and then there's the feeling of recpricocity (you liked my post so I'll like yours).

photography itself will never die but it's evolving as new technologies emerge j

Actually technology is creating new markets for photography. At a meeting with a new farm tenant last week to discuss the 2020 crop year, he was showing me field photos provided by a service that he utilizes. The company uses drones to map fields at various times throughout the year, helping to identify fertility, drainage, and insect problems.

Holography has been around for awhile, but I just saw this in my news feed today. Researchers Created Holograms You Can Feel and Hear it has a long way to go but how cool would it be to one day have a Star Trek holograph deck?

 

[Vtec44]

photography itself will never die but it's evolving as new technologies emerge j

Actually technology is creating new markets for photography. At a meeting with a new farm tenant last week to discuss the 2020 crop year, he was showing me field photos provided by a service that he utilizes. The company uses drones to map fields at various times throughout the year, helping to identify fertility, drainage, and insect problems.

Holography has been around for awhile, but I just saw this in my news feed today. Researchers Created Holograms You Can Feel and Hear it has a long way to go but how cool would it be to one day have a Star Trek holograph deck?

IMHO the technology itself isn't creating anything. People who are finding new ways to use it are the real force behind creating new markets. A knife is a cutting tool and it didn't create the market for wood carving, but wood carving is a bit harder with an axe. Although, I've seen people done it with chainsaws

 

[star camera company]

Uhhhhh......hate to tell ya, those kids holding up the iPhone....That’s Photography.

 

[Original katomi]

Uhhhhh......hate to tell ya, those kids holding up the iPhone....That’s Photography.

So how long before the phone is grafted to the brain and the data/images/et al are stored directly to the brain.

 

[star camera company]

Well......did anyone think “digital” would surplant film? Absolutely Yes what we have now will seem primitive and a curio in 2219. Oddly enough, About a dozen common chemicals will produce a wet plate image on a piece of glass now, in the past and in the future. Lot to be said for simplicity

 

[smoke665]

Uhhhhh......hate to tell ya, those kids holding up the iPhone....That’s Photography.

So how long before the phone is grafted to the brain and the data/images/et al are stored directly to the brain.

Maybe like this? Check out the eyes on a fun project I did with Grandson a couple years ago

 

[jcdeboever]

I hope it is. I just got started.

 

[Original katomi]

Nice merge pic

 

[vintagesnaps]

I think the phone has taken the place of a point 'n shoot, or before that Instamatics, etc. that were used by the average person taking pictures of vacation, holidays, whatever. It's just that now people plaster their photos all over the internet where before only friends and family saw their photos in an album, or a slideshow, or bad home movies! lol I think peeps just like 'everything' because they're trying to be nice, or be a friend, etc. so they 'like' everything that crosses their (online) path.

It seems it's already somewhat died out as a profession, with all the people with cameras on social media, underpricing, etc. But I wonder if that will somewhat rebound. I've seen it often enough that many don't last long because they start running into problems with unhappy clients, complaints about albums that are subpar and already falling apart, people wanting a lot for not much, not making much money for the amount of work it ends up being, etc. etc.

I have seen it hit our local sports/hockey community (which is a relatively small world) and those jobs (not just photography but in media, PR, & radio) never came back; I've known a few guys who got laid off and are now working in sales, etc.

But then there are things that supposedly were dead that came back - like film!! and vinyl... Although they haven't necessarily come back in the mainstream but there's still interest and they're still around.

 

[vintagesnaps]

Derrel, that happened in a Jimmy Cagney movie I saw not long ago - he had a camera up his pants leg (trying to get a picture at an execution). Then he went running back to his newspaper and I never did see what the camera was (that being the important thing!). Looked like a rangefinder, that was all I could tell. I didn't know something like that had actually happened.

 

[pocketshaver]

Photography as we know it....

Yes its somewhat dead on arrival now.

Why? Well you have three kinds of photography. Film, digital, and the cell phone stuff that has reached the level of syphilis.

Us folks with actual film or digital cameras, we shoot with a purpose. For fun or profit. It doesn't matter, we actually sit back and figure out what we want to do.

The cell phone crap, well 90% of it seems to be random photos of what people are eating, or wearing, what the dog did. Basically annoying crap that NO ONE wants to see.

 

[Derrel]

Photography as we know it. It depends upon when you got to know it

If you recall the 1970s, then you recall one aspect of the field of photography.If you remember the 1980s then you remember another aspect. And so on and so on.

Some earlier types of Photography have basically died out. For example instant photography, using mainly Polaroid film, has become even more of a niche thing than it used to be, although there are currently still a few instant cameras on the market