The future of photography

[tom b]

Muhammad Ali funeral parade.

It's not a bad thing?

Cheers,

[stamper]

Where's the connection between the parade and the future of photography....apart from the fact the image came from a camera?

[Rob C]

It's not the future, Tom, it's the now!

What you see is the final few nails. Utter devaluation of what was once, at the very least, if not an art a craft.

Rob

[tom b]

As I have posted before there are about 1.8 billion images/videos posted online each day. This image is not random, we have to get used to it, this is the present.

Cheers,

[pegelli]

In the life of photography you've always had snappers, you've always had people who executed photography a different (more serious?) way. Maybe the numbers change as well as the ratio between the different types of photographers, but that's normal evolution, nothing new about it in my mind.

[drmike]

+1

Mike

[RSL]

What's new is the tidal wave of images out there. I think that before the advent of phone cameras, or perhaps more precisely the advent of the digital point-and-shoot, people paid more attention to photographs, and were able to distinguish between what was froth and what was serious stuff. Pieter's right. There always have been tourist shooters. The Argus C3 and its devotees come to mind. But in the late thirties through the Korean war Life magazine and its competitors published some very serious photographs, including those by HCB, Capa, Bischof, Haas, David Douglas Duncan, and I think people were able to make a distinction between what was good and what wasn't. Nowadays I think many people, and excuse me for saying it, younger people have been swept away by the flood. "Sunday on the Banks of the River Seine" is no different from a selfie -- just another pic.

[TomFrerichs]

I think a bit of editing is appropriate. What's (relatively) new out there is the "tidal wave of the distribution of images out there." The Argus C3 guys often had to dig out the slide projector, giving one an opportunity to slip away. Even if the result were prints, the audience was limited to being physically present.

Now, however, on my phone I see snapshots within minutes of being taken.

What hasn't changed is the complaining.  From Alfred Stieglitz in 1899:  The placing in the hands of the general public a means of making pictures but with little labor and requiring less knowledge has of necessity been followed by the production of millions of photographs. It is due to this fatal facility that photography as a picture-making medium has fallen into disrepute.

Tom

[Rob C]

I think a bit of editing is appropriate. What's (relatively) new out there is the "tidal wave of the distribution of images out there." The Argus C3 guys often had to dig out the slide projector, giving one an opportunity to slip away. Even if the result were prints, the audience was limited to being physically present.

Now, however, on my phone I see snapshots within minutes of being taken.

What hasn't changed is the complaining.  From Alfred Stieglitz in 1899:  The placing in the hands of the general public a means of making pictures but with little labor and requiring less knowledge has of necessity been followed by the production of millions of photographs. It is due to this fatal facility that photography as a picture-making medium has fallen into disrepute.

Tom

And he was right. The infinite number of copies possible from each neg. or original 'file' further reduces its value as object where art commerce is involved. Without the cachet of being exclusive... the fight is uphill during a landslide.

Rob C

[Robert Roaldi]

Yup, the world is going to hell in a hand cart: short video.

[Rob C]

Agreed.

Those who placed photography on the pedestal as art or craft or could distinguish between the froth and the serious stuff have always been a tiny minority.

Yes, there’s more crap out there now but there’s also more enthusiast content than there ever was.

Gosh, at times this place can be so negative.

I wonder if that's the case; I seem to remember that magazines used to provide browsing material for amateur snappers - not as glossy as the ones of today (the mags) but that's not something I could back up with numbers... I think perhaps there are more different mags for the snapper today, but I wonder if they are collected with as much excitement as the old ones used to be. I suspect that because one used to have to pay for the materials, the people then making photos were relatively keen - if they went on to print for themselves. Today, I think it's snap! and don't really expect to take it any further. Do many non-'enthusiasts' go as far as getting into quality monitors, Photoshop etc. etc. or do they just settle for what comes out of the camera? Who can tell?

I had imagined that the postcard industry would die; however, the shops here still seem to stock a lot of them.

Rob

[RSL]

The web is what's killing photography magazines. Popular Photography and Shutterbug used to run many pages of ads by B&H and Adorama. Nowadays people go to the web if they want equipment, and the ads by the big stores are a page or two. These magazines are dying a slow death. It doesn't help that they no longer have much that relates to serious photography. Most of the writing has to do with stuff at the "how to turn on your camera" level. To see how bad it's gotten read Scott Kelby's "Ask a Pro" column in Shutterbug. I can remember when Popular Photography (I think it was Pop Photo) ran a very negative review of Frank's The Americans. I might not have agreed with the article but it was serious stuff. No magazine would touch something like that  nowadays.

[Telecaster]

Things change, as they always eventually do. If you're invested in the way things were you'll see this as a negative. Photo mags are a good example. Used to love 'em, and subscribed to many. Now they're mostly redundant, having been made so by the 'net. So be it.

I can do the things I enjoy doing photographically with greater ease and precision than when I was younger and the tech was different. I'm not a fan of everything folks are doing with current tech, nor am I a fan of all aspects of that tech, but on balance: it's good.

-Dave-

[Rob C]

Popular Photography, US Camera, Modern Photography are just three that come to mind from those days. In the UK we had Amateur Photographer and also Photography (Ed. Norman Hall) where I had my first pic publisherd - a girl, naturally. Shared the space with Peter Sellers.

But things 'photographic' were far from well in the UK during the 50s and early 60s. Have a look at the link below to get the general idea of the wilderness and its extent.

http://www.fine-photographs.co.uk/index.php/creative-camera-all/magazine-memoirs?showall=1&limitstart=

So yes, in some ways we are better off today, but in the end, in a qualitative sense, I don't really think much has changed: whereas before we had silence, today we have white noise.

Rob

[drmike]

I remember AP in those days well (I suppose 1966-1972 I guess), Victor Blackman had that think piece as I recall. They tested lenses by shooting a boat across the Thames and I recall salivating over all that gear I couldn't afford and the scanning the small ads for bargains. A lot of the photographs were appallingly bad and so conservative.

Photography magazine I don't recall but that I think is just a crappy memory.

Creative Camera was wonderful and I subscribed to it for a while at some expense. I still have about 24 issues. My aspiration was to get a photo in CC, never did. I did get 5 published in AP though but sadly I lost the issue with the article in it. I got paid as well. I still have the tripod I bought with the money. I was very impressed and felt well posh when they returned the photographs with the markings on the back