Is Photography As We Know It Dying?

[Destin]

Hey guys, I took 40 minutes out of my day today and watched this video by Fstoppers. I thought it would be cool to have a discussion over this topic ourselves and see what forum members think about this.

I know it's a long video, but I found it extremely interesting and immersive. What do you guys think?

 

[Derrel]

I only watched the first seven minutes of it. I wish it were an article. I think I could read everything they said in probably 5 to 7 minutes. There is no doubt that the photography business is not what it used to be and the way we use,take, and share photos,and the way we display them has changed since well, since prints basically went away.

Yes there are many professional photographers who sell prints, and prints are wonderful, but it has been several years since I have actually witnessed a regular person showing off their photos in the form of Color Prints. But every day lately I see people sharing photos via their smartphones, looking at pictures on their smartphones , and sending pictures and receiving pictures in the form of digital files.

Remeber the Yellow Page phone directory? Do you remember the card catalog at your local or High School library from the 1970s or 1980s or even the 1990s? There are a number of things that we don't do the way we used to. Remember actual paper maps?

When I was in my twenties , there were lots of Photography gigs that you could get on weekends and nights but those have largely disappeared now, as people are more capable with their digital cameras and with the cameras inside their phones.

There are still occasions where people hire professional photographers, but those occasions are far fewer than they used to be. And I think people have a different expectation about how they will get their photos, and also they have a somewhat different sense of valuing the photos.

 

[smoke665]

Let me ask you a question??? If Photography is dying, where did the images used for the Tamron ad in the first 40 seconds of the video come from???? Did they just magically generate themselves digitally, or did a photographer shoot them??? Think about how many images you view every day on the TV, in a magazine, in a catalog, on the internet, on product packaging, on the billboards on the highway, advertising is everywhere. 24/7 we are inundated by images, which at one time were taken by a photographer. I don't believe photography will ever die, it will evolve, because a world devoid of images would be a very dull world indeed. For better or worse we seem to have entered a world of instant gratification on images. It's not good enough that a digital camera can display the image on the screen, when you have a cell phone that can do a selfi, add all kinds of effects, and automatically send it to multiple social media sites in less time then it takes to pull the SD card out of your camera. So on a consumer level photography will continue to evolve to meet the market. On the commercial end though there will still be a need for the professional photographer.

 

[Original katomi]

I think like a lot of things photography will reach a peak then drop back to a manageable level, the likes of canon,Nikon will push the limits of technology and reach a limiting point.
Photography will prob evolve but I can’t see it dying out
Out there beyond the lens there are all sorts of things that people thought would die out.
Yet we still have film photography and have members here who have old cameras that they use and maintain
Steam trains, and groups to preserve them
Spit fire planes still fly over where I live.

 

[RVT1K]

There used to be an esprit de corps associated with photography.

Cell phone cameras in the hands of everyone has taken that away.

 

[SquarePeg]

Yes things are changing/changed. The profession of photography may have narrowed but the hobby itself is exploding. Instagram and other digital social media have shown the masses what really talented photographers can do (with all types of cameras) and they all want to do it too. It used to be I would take my dslr to a game or event and maybe see one other person with theirs and a few cell phone cameras out. Now, everyone has a dslr or advanced cell phone camera and everyone thinks they’re a photographer.

To me the biggest change is the amount of bad photos that are out there. We’ve all seen posts on social media of some crooked horizon overly saturated slightly out of focus sunset photo that gets 1000 likes from the poster’s “friends” who all comment how amazing it is and encourage the poster to turn pro.

 

[smoke665]

We’ve all seen posts on social media of some crooked horizon overly saturated slightly out of focus sunset photo that gets 1000 likes from the poster’s “friends” who all comment how amazing it is and encourage the poster to turn pro.

Yup say hello to the "like culture" where self gratification is the norm. Heaven forbid you'd actually post the truth about their photos. Actually even FB has finally realized the monster it created Facebook Is Considering a Huge Shift That Would Dramatically Change How You Use the Social Network--It's a Good Thing

 

[SquarePeg]

We’ve all seen posts on social media of some crooked horizon overly saturated slightly out of focus sunset photo that gets 1000 likes from the poster’s “friends” who all comment how amazing it is and encourage the poster to turn pro.

Yup say hello to the "like culture" where self gratification is the norm. Heaven forbid you'd actually post the truth about their photos. Actually even FB has finally realized the monster it created Facebook Is Considering a Huge Shift That Would Dramatically Change How You Use the Social Network--It's a Good Thing

I don’t have a problem with Facebook or Instagram “likes”. My comment was more focused on the fact that people like the sub standard photo.

 

[Jeff15]

Is Photography As We Know It Dying?

NO

 

[NGH]

This question has probably been asked many times in the past.
Like all activities they change over time and new technologies come along that affect that change. I am sure when colour came along, some black and white focused photographers thought that photography AS THEY KNEW IT was dying, when 35mm came along the same, compacts, disk, APS and digital. They are all changes that altered thinking and processes and how images were made/consumed - so you could say that in some ways the previous understanding of what photography was died; but a new understanding emerged and photography (however you define it) continues.
They say "Evolve or die" - photography is just evolving

 

[Derrel]

"So, how do you know photography? Were you two in school together? Oh, oh, oh, you two were roommates, right?"...

 

[webestang64]

That question is a bit late...............True photography died back in 1888 when the pre-loaded Kodak camera came out.

 

[Derrel]

There are many types of photography- there is commercial photography, retail photography, photojournalism, hobby photography, family photography, social photography , and photography for blogs and social media. And probably some other types which I have failed to mention.

The world is in a constant state of change, so why should photography be any different? There is an old saying that the only constant is change. I feel that that old saying is true.

 

[Derrel]

The idea that a photo is substandard if people like it, well if people like it, how can it be substandard? I think many times people who are technically-minded look at things like a minor tilt of the horizon, or a slight bit of blurring as making a photo substandard, when in reality the vast majority of people have an entirely different way of determining what is a good photo. The other day a friend of mine had some photos printed, and one was a photo of a young woman with pearly white teeth, and her entire face was covered in deep dark brown mud, and there was a very slight, and I mean very slight, as in almost imperceptible degree of shutter speed blurring or subject motion blur. I personally felt that the very slight blurring actually_added to_ the sense of verisimilitude, but in one sense one could downgrade the photo.

it's like the famous blurry Beach D-Day Landing photo attributed to Capra, which by the standards of any self-respecting 1940s photojournalist, was a really crappy photo, looking much more blurry than most people would consider acceptable, resembling a 1966 Ernst Haas 1/5 second sailboat photo in the degree of blurriness.

A lot of what many photographers might consider "substandard" is in the realm of snapshot photography, or vernacular photography as some call it, quite good. I think a photo has to be evaluated not based upon its technical merit, but based on its emotional or visceral impact. One of the most memorable photos I have _ever seen_ I saw about 40 years ago, or actually more. It was in a Time Life Book in their famous l?Library of Photography series. The photo was made in the early 1900s and was a photo taken by an ankle-mounted camera that was smuggled in to an early electric chair execution. The photographer pulled up his pant leg and took one shot, presumably because his camera only had one shot. The photo was grainy and blurry and somewhat underexposed, and yet I can still remember it. I saw the photo when I was in 6 or 7th grade and I am now almost 57 years old! The photo I am talking about would be considered quite substandard even by the time in which it was shot, in which most photographs were made on glass plates or on large pieces of the then-new thing called film. The photo was low in resolution back in the days when many cameras were 5 x 7 in or even 8 x 10 in, and when the vast majority of photos were quite Sharp if one looks at the old glass plate scenic's shot in that time on a website such as shorpy.com, it will be clear that the execution photo which I saw many years ago was "substandard" by many different metrics.

Underexposed, blurry, and poor in technical quality, and yet a photo that I can almost to this day see in my mind's eye about 45 years later. Substandard in most every way and yet Unforgettable.

 

[zombiesniper]

Is photography as we know it dying?

This is a complicated question and a simple one at the same time.

Some forms of photography have taken a hit in the pocketbooks of those that earned a living at it but at the same time more people the ever have been taking photos.

I think it would have to be broken into a few categories.

Professional photography.
I would say that this area has possibly seen the most change for the worse.
As better/smarter equipment becomes available to the masses. They are able to produce better images. Still not on par with a seasoned pro but good enough for most and this has hit the pocketbooks of a lot of photographers.
Even business are not valuing the professional photographer as much as they used to because "we have a guy with a camera, we'll have him do it". My company tried it until I sent them a contract for the job, since my current position has nothing to do with photography. Lets just say the $10k price tag ensured I'd be doing my current job and not freelancing for them. lol

Hobby/enthusiast photography.
This in some areas has taken a large uptake of new photographers. I'm always bumping into new people that have recently taken to photography as a serious hobby and want to get that next amazing shot.
I believe this is the group that is currently pushing the companies to create that next new technology that everyone can benefit from. Pro's won't change gear unless it will make a marked improvement and will provide value to their business but enthusiast (and fanboys) will buy that new gear just to have that new feature even though they haven't maxed out the capabilities of their current gear.

Casual photography.
Same as it's always been accept its now shown on phones or computers screens instead of walls or photo albums.
This is the group that is benefiting the most from the last 10-15 years of tech development. Their vacation snapshots have gone from washed out crappy out of focus bad colour balanced garbage to pretty darn decent images and they didn't have to learn a darn thing to do it. The cameras got smarter because the people wouldn't.


In short no, as we know it, it isn't dying, however it is evolving.
As with anything, those that evolve with it will excel. Those that don't will be remembered.