Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: weddings parties anything  (Read 1816 times)

lowep

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 568
    • http://sites.google.com/site/peterlowefoto/
weddings parties anything
« on: November 23, 2009, 10:34:26 am »

Since wedding guests are often asked to take photographs with disposable cameras and on-line news and current affairs websites encourage readers to upload their own photos that are often shot with mobile phones. While every tourist & every proud parent has a digital camera etc etc... what effect if any is this having on the livelihoods of professional photographers ditto the market prospects for medium format digital and other high end camera systems that can only be afforded by pros or wealthy amateurs? Is the incoming tide of low rez photography an old wave that just keeps on coming? Or a tsunami? Is it shifting interest away from exhibitions and fine art prints, as television impacted on cinema? Or boosting interest in photography as the Kodak Brownie and SLR did? Does it reduce demand for portrait photography as the invention of daguerreotype impacted on portrait painting? Or is it totally irrelevant?  

This is not a very precise question. It is just that I am becoming vaguely concerned that the ground I think I am standing on as a very serious practicing photographer may be disintegrating leaving no other swollowable justification that I can use to explain at dinner parties why I continue to do what I do than old habits die hard.

Should I buy an iPhone just to keep up appearances?

What would Ansell do...
Logged

Geoff Wittig

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1023
weddings parties anything
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2009, 01:01:09 pm »

Quote from: lowep
What would Ansell do...

1) Ansel Adams worked as a (rather ordinary) commercial photographer to pay the bills right into the 1950s, so he could keep shooting sublime landscapes. What would Ansel do? Whatever it took to keep the lights on.

2) Compare the out of focus, badly composed, poorly lit grabshots taken by wedding guests (and uncle Bob who has "a really good digital camera") with a beautifully lit, perfectly composed, perfectly timed shot of the bride & groom locking eyes. There will always be a place for really excellent photography. If anything, the photography world seems to be polarizing into ruthlessly competitive high-end commercial work in big cities, and competent wedding/senior portrait studios everywhere else. The perfect storm of shrinking market, plummeting budgets and exploding volume of digital photography does appear to be killing magazine photojournalism.
Logged

lowep

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 568
    • http://sites.google.com/site/peterlowefoto/
weddings parties anything
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2009, 09:05:51 pm »

Quote from: Geoff Wittig
a beautifully lit, perfectly composed, perfectly timed shot of the bride & groom locking eyes.

Maybe this can soon be done with an Iphone  ; isn't it already being done very well with 'really good' DSLRs?

How do heavy MF digital kits with clunky autofocus systems, slow buffers, expensive lenses and habit of draining batteries faster than you can say jack rabbit fit into this scenario?

Just read a thought provoking story on the website of Danish television about a commercial photographer who is concerned that a new initiative to put passport photo booths in public offices throughout the country would probably put him out of business, as about 30% of his turnover is passport photos and the rest is largely generated by people who come through the door for a passport photo and end up coming back for a wedding or portrait of their kids.

I wonder if he has a MF digital system and if he does how much it gets used?
« Last Edit: November 23, 2009, 09:08:36 pm by lowep »
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up