Trivialization of photography

[Paulo Bizarro]

Good article, and food for thought. I was just wondering what the numbers look like if one normalizes the number of photos taken per year by the human population?

Is this ratio actually increasing? 150 years ago the number of photos taken per year was much less than today, but so was the human population right?

[stamper]

I am scratching my head wondering how they could calculate the number of photographs taken and more importantly...does it matter?

[Kevin Raber]

I have seen numbers batted around for a long time on this topic.  Here is just one link that helps understand the calculation.  http://resourcemagonline.com/2014/12/infographic-there-will-be-one-trillion-photos-taken-in-2015/45332/

[stamper]

I have seen numbers batted around for a long time on this topic.  Here is just one link that helps understand the calculation.  http://resourcemagonline.com/2014/12/infographic-there-will-be-one-trillion-photos-taken-in-2015/45332/

Sorry...I find this to be nonsensical.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Sorry...I find this to be nonsensical.

As with all estimations, the only thing that is sure is that it is wrong:) Having said that, the assumptions they make are not unreasonable. 1/2 of the population in the world with camera phones is reasonable.

How many photos are taken by each person per day using their phone, that is anybody's guess though. Unless there is a way to track the number of uploads to social media sites and their data bases, which there must be...

Still, in 1900 the world's population was around 2 billion, and the number of photos estimated at 3 million. That gives around 0,0015 photos per person in that year.

In 2015 we have around 7,3 billion people, with say 400 billion photos per year. That gives around 58 photos per person per year.

[FMueller]

I think focusing on the numbers of picture taken and the calculations made to get there kinda seems to be missing the point.

I thought the article was an eloquent reflection on what it means to the author on being a photographer today and the value in such a pursuit.

Your mileage may vary.

[Rob C]

Much ado about nothing.

Photography, for anyone not earning their living through it, has always been on that long list of trivial pursuits way, way before the eponymous game was invented.

The amatuer status, pretty much by definition, ensures that it's something that's done without any real pressure to deliver. If you don't get your piccy this time, you can do it the next - if you remember and if you care enough to bother. Nobody is going to sue you.

If you consider yourself an artist, as in a photographic one, then your pressure becomes one of personal rôle definition rather than anything else. Regardless of nomenclature you will still be free to do whatever you care to do, just as long as you can afford it and it's legal. Titles go for nothing.

If your interest, as your ability, is limited to the visual note, then do you even care about anything else photographic, would the self-consideration of artistic status simply have you lol-ing on the floor at the absurdity?

It's just another non-problem illustrating the fatuousness of a lot of Internet life. Noise.

Rob C

[Paulo Bizarro]

I think focusing on the numbers of picture taken and the calculations made to get there kinda seems to be missing the point.

I thought the article was an eloquent reflection on what it means to the author on being a photographer today and the value in such a pursuit.

Your mileage may vary.

I actually wrote "good article and food for thought"... my ensuing focusing on numbers was derived from pure curiosity, that is all. I did not miss the point. The point to me is that if you are a pro today it is more difficult to sell your photos, given the amount of images taken at the same place/event by the countless folks using countless camera phones.

Numbers are not irrelevant in such a context...

[Paulo Bizarro]

Much ado about nothing.


Rob C

It can be a problem for pros. Imagine something eventful happens, and you rush to the scene of the event. By the time you got your pic, hundreds of pics of said event, plus videos, would already have been uploaded to social media sites and news agencies. For free.

[Rob C]

It can be a problem for pros. Imagine something eventful happens, and you rush to the scene of the event. By the time you got your pic, hundreds of pics of said event, plus videos, would already have been uploaded to social media sites and news agencies. For free.

Already too late, Paulo: unless it's in motion it doesn't count. Life is dead. Long live tv. Yet longer live 'social'. This was, I believe about stills? If not, then there's zich to discuss: one swamp is much like another.

Rob C

[bdbender4]

I wonder how many words have been written in human history?

[amolitor]

This is a topic that has been covered in a lot more depth by other writers, not surprisingly.

I'm disappointed that this author doesn't choose to expand on any of the lessons he's learned, simply referring to "life lessons" and so on. Apparently Photography has taught him, and continues to teach him, much, but he's not going to share what. He's simply engaged in some vague hand-wringing about All These Pictures, and then, I guess (?) concluding that it does affect him.

Here's a nugget to ponder: People who are buying pictures from you, looking at your pictures, judging them, whatever, these people live in a world with a trillion pictures. They swim in a sea of ephemeral pictures. This matters to you, unless you can actually not care what anyone (including YOU, since you also live in this world) thinks of your pictures.

Also, "tenants"?

[Otto Phocus]

It can be a problem for pros. Imagine something eventful happens, and you rush to the scene of the event. By the time you got your pic, hundreds of pics of said event, plus videos, would already have been uploaded to social media sites and news agencies. For free.

Then that person is in the wrong business.  Or to be more accurate, the business model has changed and in order to survive the professional photographer has to change.

If random people can take a picture that are "good enough" and they can take it "soon enough" the value of the professional photographer recording the event is harder to measure... and harder to justify.

With today's faster data environment, a better picture two hours from now may not be as nearly valuable as a "good enough" picture in five minutes. This is especially true in breaking events.

Many of us like to justify that quality should always be the priority, but in reality, quality is only one of several characteristics of photograph.  Timeliness and cost are also measures of a photograph's value.

A poor professional blames the customer  "The customer does not know/understand/appreciate what "good" photography is".  That's a rather self-serving attitude that can help the person feel better emotionally, but it does not change the reality that what the customer want (and is willing to pay for) is what is important in that business relationship.   

Trying to convince a customer that they don't really want what they think they want, but instead should want what the photographer wants is becoming a hard sell....especially when the photographer tells the customer that what the photographer thinks the customer wants will cost more.  Yikes!

I would say that with the exception of gaining access to restricted areas (press pass required), the professional photographer trying to earn a living photographing breaking news will be getting harder.  If only for the fact that there are more amateur photographers out there than professional photographers and there is an overwhelming chance that many more amateur photographers will be at the right location, at the right time, with a camera that is good enough.

I really sympathize with professional photographers these days. The market environment is changing, and I am not sure I know of a way for the professional to change to keep ahead of the market.

But the professional photographer must change.  In my opinion, the days of the full time professional photographer are coming to an end.  Either the photographer earns money from other photography related sources (workshops, websites, seminars) or simply by having a full time non-photographic job and a part time photographic job.  There will probably always be people who can earn a living solely by taking photographs, but I think that numbers will dwindle.

[David Sutton]

Interesting read but nothing new.
In the late 1870s Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), one of the most prominent and weirdest of Victorian photographers, heard of the development of the dry plate camera. He reportedly said "here comes the rabble" and gave up photography a year later.
Unfortunately he was right, but that's another story.

[Martin Kristiansen]

Just about everybody can write. Has that killed writing as a career?

[Rob C]

Just about everybody can write. Has that killed writing as a career?

If you judge by the Internet, yes.

If your measure is found in books, no.

Rob C

[dvb]

Thanks for the article.  The actual number is irrelevant - choose any number that means "unimaginably large".

What is important is that photography is now very accessible to everyone, which means that everyone can explore a visual art.

An analogy might be poetry - everyone has written some poetry at some time, probably pretty poor.  But, that doesn't mean it shoud not have been written or that it did not serve a useful function to the writer.

The issue becomes "How do we curate this product and decide if it should be shared more widely?"

Essentially, like poetry journals, there are sites like this one that we can return to, being reasonable sure that worthwhile art has been chosen to be shared.

[kencameron]

If you judge by the Internet, yes.

If your measure is found in books, no.

Rob C

Plenty of people make a living writing for the internet. Quality is mixed, as in books.

[Christopher Sanderson]

dyspepsia circa 2015

re-invigorate with a few choice words from Bertrand Russell

esp #6 & #9

[Rob C]

Plenty of people make a living writing for the internet. Quality is mixed, as in books.

All depends what you are willing to think good.

If things are or are not trivial also depend on the point of view of the person involved - at both ends of the message. But, having said that, I think it might well come down to something else: what's memorable? I remember books; not much of the Internet experience beyond photographs by people whose work interested me years ago, but to which access was pretty much impossible. So taking this back to the OP's premise...

Rob C