Past, Present and Future Of Photography

[Les Sparks]

Thanks for the great round table discussion. I really enjoyed the discussion that the three of you shared with us.
Wonderful to have something about photography that wasn't related to gear.
It would really be great if you could do something along these lines where you discussed a few of your images i.e. the salon idea that Michael mentioned in the video.
 

[TomFrerichs]

Let me also add my thanks for that video.  I enjoyed watching it and, to some extent, identifying with some of the historical comments.  Anyone else develop Royal X Pan 4x5 file in hangers? 

I'm also jealous of Michael's "salon."  I don't like to talk about gear much, but I do like to discuss photographs and photography. There was a group where I live that met occasionally to discuss/critique each other's photographs. Sadly the organizer has had serious health issues, and this has gone by the wayside. And I miss the experience.

Unfortunately the local camera clubs seem to be obsessed by gear discussions, ranging from the inane to the arcane, and competitions. And as marvelous as the Internet might be, it is no substitute for personal interaction.

I suppose I'll have to get my fix vicariously by watching videos of good photographers discussing their work...and reading LensWork.

Tom Frerichs

[adias]

Great conversation! Michael is right, it's all-out the craft. Same among sports cars enthusiasts seeking classics and shunning modern digital models.

[trichardlin]

With all due respect, I do have one minor criticism of the video: with all the great knowledge and experience of these three wise men, I can't believe the poor lighting/background of this video. Come on guys, don't you have some lighting equipment and some backgrounds? And the color balance, the muddy mid-tone. My goodness.

Richard

[MHMG]

I feel like I could have happily joined in and contributed to the panel discussion. That's because I'm an aging white male baby boomer who picked up the craft of photography around the same time as Michael, Kevin, and Brooks. I too, learned my fundamental craft skills in the film era, and I also made the transition from film to digital. I still try to practice some form of photography that does indeed require some craft-based knowledge. I believe it matters, and I'm pretty sure this panel discussion resonates well with other male baby boomers who visit LuLa.

All that said, the group of folks I'd dearly love to hear from are the millennials. Maybe they are not only embarking eagerly onto the "third wave", they might just be rendering a fourth wave in the near future. I'm just wondering... Do younger generations today care about any of the film era values and approaches to photography? Do they carefully consider the long term durability of the imaging processes they currently use?  I have heard from various colleagues that at the college photography level many young people are keen to learn about film and traditional darkroom technique, but is that assertion really true? If so, are these young folks here on LuLa, or on some other website?

best,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[rdonson]

Thank you for an engaging conversation.  I enjoyed it immensely and found it insightful.  I hope these conversations continue and that Brooks appears yet again.

[Tony Jay]

I too really enjoyed what I heard.
If it is at all possible I would like to see a follow-up - as much as was covered I feel that the topics were by no means exhausted.

More broadly, it is obvious that figuring out what the future might hold is difficult at best, however, unless we know from whence we came, trying to understand the future becomes well nigh impossible.

Although technically my photographic journey started in the 1970's I really regard myself as a child of the digital era since it is only relatively recently that I have been able to indulge what has always been a huge passion. So, I cannot really say that I experienced the challenges of the transition from the film/analog era to the current digital era. Nonetheless I am a great student of history because
I firmly believe that none of us can comprehend the present, much less the future, without understanding where we came from.

So, a big thumbs up for Michael and Kevin (and Brooks) for this illuminating discussion.
Perhaps, as an extension of the concept, more interviews with Brooks and other significant personalities (Jay Maisel is a name that springs easily to mind but there would be no shortage of possibilities) potentially with broad themes in mind appropriate for the individual that is contributing.

My $0.02 worth

Tony Jay

[amolitor]

I'm hoping the follow-up takes some time to talk about indie publishing. Blurb is the tip of the iceberg, we've got people doing hand made editions. We've got people doing letterpress in their basements. It's kind of exploding, according to some sources.

It's true that you're unlikely to get a monograph from done international publisher. But you're most likely than ever to do an edition of 25 or 400 or whatever with some local storefront publisher.

Which is kind of how it was 120 years ago.

[Tim J]

I also wanted to chime in here and express how much I enjoyed the video. You guys provided many interesting things to think about and I hope to see many more video discussions like this that aren't just focused on gear. When you take the gear out of the topic and talk about photography it involves everyone that wants to be creative with whatever cameras they own and I love that.

I love the new changes to the site too.  

-Tim

[michael]

With all due respect, I do have one minor criticism of the video: with all the great knowledge and experience of these three wise men, I can't believe the poor lighting/background of this video. Come on guys, don't you have some lighting equipment and some backgrounds? And the color balance, the muddy mid-tone. My goodness.

Richard

Not to make excuses, but Air Canada lost Chris' bag the day before. It contained all of our sound gear, and lots more. Fortunately, he had hand carried his cameras and lenses.

We were also shooting in an unplanned location, in a borrowed office, and on borrowed time.

We did the best that we could under the circumstances.

Michael

[Les Sparks]

I enjoyed Kevin's short discussion of the joy of going through the shoe boxes of old family images his family. This is a joy that I fear that my grand children won't have unless their parents and grandparents take special steps to save some 1,000s of digital images we're taking of them. Saving the images can include 4x6 prints from Costco or small books from many of the book making services. But it will more effort than simply posting images on the web, or in an e-mail, or a smart phone text.
Brooks said that perhaps the important images will be saved for the future because they're the ones that get collected or in book or printed.
But important to who? I think many of us forget that some of our images are important to family and friends and need to be saved too.
Unfortunately, we (or at least I) often save by printing the landscape and other "major" images that end up on my walls and leave the images of friends and family on the web or shared as e-mail.
I really need to make an effort to gather up the friends and family stuff and but it in a book--including the images of our various dogs.

Brooks pointed out the need to find and serve our audiences. And I know that I need to better serve the audience of my family by ensuring that more  of the day to day event to event images are made permanent and not left as 1s and 0s on a hard drive somewhere.

Les

[Schewe]

We did the best that we could under the circumstances.

That's all you need say...

[trichardlin]

Not to make excuses, but Air Canada lost Chris' bag the day before. It contained all of our sound gear, and lots more. Fortunately, he had hand carried his cameras and lenses.

We were also shooting in an unplanned location, in a borrowed office, and on borrowed time.

We did the best that we could under the circumstances.

Michael

I appreciate your chiming in, Michael. The only reason for my post is that I expect the best, even in the smallest details, from the three of you. I've been browsing Lula for at least 10 years, and have pretty much all issues of LensWork. Needless to say, I'm a big fan.

For some reason, this video reminds me of the opening scene of the movie Smoke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_uXZZRpO-E

[Jeff Griffin]

Interesting and informative video  and Kevin even gave a mention to the photography magazines over here in the UK   


Obviously I am no expert as the lighting / colour balance  did not strike me as being wrong.
Perhaps the misfortune with Chris's bag made for a less  than optimum " technical" recording making it more of a group of friends  casually sitting down having a chat.

Hopefully, you will be able to do some more of this type of thing in the future .

[Tony Jay]

The overall quality of that video segment in no way detracted from the quality of the content!

Tony Jay

[Otto Phocus]

... but I do like to discuss photographs and photography. There was a group where I live that met occasionally to discuss/critique each other's photographs. Sadly the organizer has had serious health issues, and this has gone by the wayside. And I miss the experience.... And as marvelous as the Internet might be, it is no substitute for personal interaction.

Tom Frerichs

Why not start your own group?  Especially if there used to be a discussion group that when inactive when the organizer was ill. 

Start small and simple -- a meet up at a local restaurant... A group of people sharing a common interest is all that is needed to start a group.

[rdonson]

The overall quality of that video segment in no way detracted from the quality of the content!

Tony Jay

I was engrossed in the conversation and despite the short audio changes I didn't notice anything.  The quality of the conversation definitely carried the day. 

Michael - more, more, please!!!!!

[aragdog]

Yes the whole thing restored a lot of memories.  My group that would meet at my home to explore color developing.  Most are gone now, but alas, now there is digital.  I still have some undeveloped film in my closet, what is in those.

Thanks for all.

[MatthewCromer]

Really enjoyed the level of discussion about photography as a medium of expression. Would love more articles, videos, etc. like this in the future!

[Rand47]

I once read that the difference between humans and animals is that animals "signal" and humans "tell stories."  One of the depressing things (for me) about living in a post-modern, naturalist world-view consensus is the trend away from genuine conversation (story telling) toward a more sterile (but "correct") sending and receiving of "signals" between human beings (which ironically is called "joining the conversation" in post-modern parlance - arrgh...).

Your video conversation took me back 30 years or so...  Bravo, Michael and Kevin, for your effort to keep conversation and story telling alive.  I thoroughly enjoyed listening in, and felt (as others have expressed here) very much like I wanted to jump in and share as well.

Rand