Death of Print

[Rob C]

The accompanying feature on the use of a small telephone-type camera in a fashion shoot context led me to thinking outside that particular box.

It is the current feeling that print is dying and that all will soon be electronically viewed on a computer, telephone or other bastard medium. So, where does that take us if we think right back to where the profession came in: motivation?

As photographers we were entranced, captivated and thoroughly bewitched by billboards, calendars, double-page spreads and other exhibition spaces of huge impact and ego-value. One has to assume that those talents within agencies that spawned the concepts, directed some of the action and created the framework within which the photos could shine must have had at least as much ego and satisfaction riding on the achievement. It must have driven them through many a sleepless night, burned a lot of midnight oil and broken a lot of family relationships in the process. But it was buzz. It was an energy that was palpable, that hit you the minute you walked into some offices. It even existed within department stores - I used to do a lot of fashion ads for a couple of House of Fraser stores on Buchanan Street in Glasgow - one was McDonalds and the other Frasers, directly opposite each other. The relationship began with McDonalds because of the manager there, a dynamic whizz-kid who was into full- and half-page ads in the local evening newspapers etc. and the deal with the store across the road was similar They shared a common enthusiasm and sense of competition, those men. Together, we ran a series of ads for the stores and they worked very successfully indeed and I was told we shifted a lot of merchandise. Then, the guy at one store was sent across to Ireland to do a corporate rescue/revamp  and the other chap left for pastures new. Guess what: the work stopped dead as did the ads. No, it wasn`t that I was replaced, I was not - the work just died at a stroke because of the change in personalities at the top. If one is not positive, convinced of being right and confident enough to play financial hardball, then nothing flourishes. It has to be for real, all the way along the chain.

One store is now renamed and the other metamorphosed into a shopping centre and carpark.

So, today or in the projected future, where will lie the buzz?

If print does indeed die, will there be anyone thrilled to bits to see his work as just an interruption, a nuisance on somebody's monitor? Knowing that people will attempt to block your work from spoiling their "experience" as folks like to say today, can hardly be incentive to work your balls off. And what about budgets? Will those new viewing spaces generate the dosh to do trips, fly flights and enjoy places where it's better, such as the Bahamas? Advertising works on the premise that money generates money and never more so where commission comes into the equation.

Which leaves the question that kicked this off: will there be anyone interested enough to follow the footsteps, but into new and leaner pastures?

Rob C

[JoeKitchen]

First, let me say that my idea of advertising is that it should only be done to back up a brand already established.  But as we move into the future I think much more marketing will be on a permission basis; the viewer will give the client the right to market to him.  You should check the work of Seth Godin.  I feel that print ads and print magazines are dying a slow death (but I was very surprised to hear from a client that they got a few prospects call in due solely to an 1/4 page print ad).  

But I do not feel that ads such as these will be gone, only moving to the electronic devices.  I think that we need give devices like the iPad 5 years or so to become saturated into the market, then we will see a revitalization of publishing and how our pictures will be used.  And who knows, maybe magazines will start to give better day rates?  And we also need the economy to recover, which could take a while; I just read today that the IMF predicts a recovery could take 5 years or more.  

I foresee some type of electronic type publication with ads that are hyperlinked to the website of the product or company it represents, sort of like Facebook ads.  And also feel that it would be within the publications best interest to charge a small few for viewing the magazine just so they can record the zip code or location of their subscribers.  They then could use that info to create a magazine with ads that only apply to each individual viewer in the viewer's individual location.  This would be very easy to do since it is electronic and the viewer would be more likely to pay attention since it could actually benefit them which is part of the problem of why so many ads are ignored (I think).  They then could sell that to marketers, telling them we know you may not need a national add campaign, but we can sell you space in only the areas you need and charge you for only those areas.  We then do the same thing and maybe add a price per click for our photos?  

This is my idea of where it is headed, but who knows?  Frankly though it is not my job to figure out how to use my images to represent businesses other then my own.  That is the job of the client, I only supply the images that they want to use.  I do not think it would be good for our brains to try and stay on the cutting edge of images making and also on advertising other businesses; just to much to worry about.  But I feel there will always be a need for good photography, especially in the interior world, where I live.  And I think video is going come into play more too as networks get better and faster.  I am trying to figure out how to use and sell video of architecture and interiors to my clients.

[dzeanah]

Personally I think video will be a larger and larger component of advertising as bandwidth continues to grow and more devices come with the capacity for it.  I can't stand it, but then, I'm not the market for most advertisers.

I do think it's likely that advertising-based business models will have to adapt.  We've seen the stock industry change (die?) with the changes over the last few years, and I expect cheap stock photos will be used in more and more advertising campaigns (and web sites, and annual reports, etc.)  Worse, people looking for "virgin" images can browse Flickr, find an amateur with nice work, and work out an appropriate licence for $250 or even just a tagline.  These trends will reduce the demand for quality commercial advertising photography further.  

I also expect that large clients will continue to pay well for advertising that meets their needs -- something unique, and individual, that says the right thing about the brand in question.  But I'd also expect that advertising/marketing agencies will be the primary beneficiaries, and photographers will be contracting with the ad agencies rather than the end clients.

That's just my guess though.

[fredjeang]

Think big.

We are not in a mass culture produced by paid specialists like before but in a do-it-yourself culture produced by the unpayed mass itself.

If you don't think big, you are condemned to Flickr.

[BJL]

Here is a wild guess: prints will only become completely obsolete when replaced by screens with resolution and DR that matches or exceeds prints, like the 320DPI screen technology of the iPhone 4, but made far bigger and even better. And there will be _big_ screens used in eye-catching advertising, in store windows and such, and maybe 300PPI+, 23"+ computer displays (so 20MP+), whether we really need them or not. And then the demands of high resolution and high DR (with DR in particular probably far higher than in prints) will keep up the demands on both equipment and expertise in using it well.

I do not see the lower resolution needs of video and today's monitors completely taking over for commercial imaging: for one thing, I expect that high quality still images will always have an advantage for getting customers engrossed in the glamourous details of a product. Commercial photographers might want to get good at generating interactive (3D, rotatable, zoomable ...) still images though.

P. S. Even if that 320PPI screen is only on a hand-held tablet like a future iPad, once the advertising image is zoomable and such, the technical demands on the photographer will be high, and should prevent the dilettantes from obsoleting the professionals.

[fredjeang]

Indeed.

This is or will not be just about the shooting.

The customers will have interactivity, they will participate more and more. They will be involved.
Stills alone does not meet those new requirements but in a small part.

When I said "think big" above, I was refering to the necesity of mastering different skills and techniques, not only photography.
And delivers the all circus in a sort of package. It is a multicraft task.

And the retoucher will also be a sort of creator with Terragen-type softwares.
Soon you won't go physically to the Bahamas to make an editorial. The scenery will be created. Low cost, absolute control on the image impact etc...

Interactivity and multimedias are changing the game rules.

Even for art galleries, I predict that the screens are the future. Prints will slowly slowly disappear.

[Rob C]

Hey-soos, Fred, your vision of the future is even more bleak than my own!

However, I'm not that sure about the alternative to print being bigger, better and more ubiquitous electronic display. I think here of HD television. It's been some years now that these sets have been on sale on this little island, and then, later, it was presented as HD-Ready when people realised an HD set did not convert your bread-and-butter transmission into HD; but the truth seems to be that very few people actually see any HD TV. There is the problem that the pay-to-view people who sell it are too greedy and I do think, too, that you can underestimate an audience: I think there is a threshold beyond which folks will simply refuse to pay very highly for the same old shit they see regardless of HD techniques. Apart from a very few programmes, tv is generally shit. How much can you sucker the public into paying for it? Particularly if most of it is going to be unemployed.

However, we seem to be sussing the alternative outlets, not really the motivations of the men who make it tick, create the glamour. Or do we think they don't care?

Rob C

[michele]

Photography, is a very different media. it's not like video, it's not like a 3D drawning. It's a different language. The art-directors know it, the clients know it. I think photography can live in prints as well in a small/big monitor. The problem, i think, is the time. We are obsessed by videos, photos, stop motion, advs in the internet, on tv, billboards, cards, mail etc. etc. it's a mess everywhere. Everything is cheaper then ever, everybody are making advs for everything and they pay less and less. I'm 26, i simply didn't live the golden era. But i know 15 years ago the adv agencies had also 1 year for preparing a world campain. Today they have 2 weeks. The clients have to make 3-4 campains per year, if not 12... The time for beautiful places and good money is over. Well, i live in Sardinia, so i live in a beautiful place  We, photographers, have to produce and send the image in few days... We must change our mindset...

[Rob C]

Photography, is a very different media. it's not like video, it's not like a 3D drawning. It's a different language. The art-directors know it, the clients know it. I think photography can live in prints as well in a small/big monitor. The problem, i think, is the time. We are obsessed by videos, photos, stop motion, advs in the internet, on tv, billboards, cards, mail etc. etc. it's a mess everywhere. Everything is cheaper then ever, everybody are making advs for everything and they pay less and less. I'm 26, i simply didn't live the golden era. But i know 15 years ago the adv agencies had also 1 year for preparing a world campain. Today they have 2 weeks. The clients have to make 3-4 campains per year, if not 12... The time for beautiful places and good money is over. Well, i live in Sardinia, so i live in a beautiful place  We, photographers, have to produce and send the image in few days... We must change our mindset...

Yes, Michele, you do live in a beautiful place, but that place is also somewhat difficult to photograph successfully.

I've been there only three times - the first visit I stayed in Stintino and saw my first windsurfers going around the prison(?) island offshore. The next time we did a recce in the Costa Smeralda and then returned to do the shoot. It was very interesting, very rich and very empty that Smeralda! The prices were stupidly high for food - we even resorted to going into the countryside to find something more realistic and ended up paying the equivalent of five pounds for a saucer of olives... and that was in  '83! Most of the time we just gave up and eat locally in the aptly named Clipper Bar. But anyway, that's not the point and I have diverted myself again.

The point is that though very beautiful it takes a scale beyond the human to show it off.

Have you seen Marco Glaviano's "sirens of cotasmeralda" (sic)? Now I had the book imported by a friend's friend who was going to Italy on holiday - I have been a Glaviano fan for ages and knew his work well. But, I was disappointed. Sardinia beat him. I also felt it had beaten me to a pulp as well, on both shoots.

However, the gist of your post is really saying more or less exactly what I feel too: the Golden Age is a thing of the past. Many younger photographers don't think it existed - for many it never did, young or old, but it was certainly there in a strength sufficient to inspire and motivate the tribes. I did relatively well out of it and many many others became millionaires on its back - I was nowhere close! But I fed and clothed my family in a good way and we were a two-car one before that became the norm.

But the thing is, we were part of something vibrant, really bursting with an energy that was beyond just our personal one which was a natural part of youth (is that even true anymore?) and an excitement was all around us. For me, it was certainly partly inspired by the London Effect - the 60s bubble that gave the confidence and utter belief that if you tried it happened. The entire island of Britain was awash with the energy. I no longer see it. I know I don't have it but can I be so out of touch with the rest of life that I would miss it elsewhere? I don't think so. And that vibrancy was in the minds of the people who hired me too, which is what I originally wondered aloud about when I opened this thread.

Without the excitement of the opportunity for public demonstration afforded by big outlets, the ego-fest, what's going to drive the artists in the industry when the opportunity of the professional showcase is reduced to a lousy laptop screen, a small telephone or an uncalibrated monitor?

I gave a friend a link to my own website shortly after I made it a few weeks ago. The guy is a good amateur photographer but has had a disaster with his computer and is reduced to using his laptop. His response to my website? God, your contrast is awful and the colors all too strong.

So, going back to the point above about the creativos and their interest in what they do, can it survive a set of judgement parameters based largely on the work being seen in such terrible ways? It is even worse than not being seen at all.

Ciao

Rob C

[Frank Doorhof]

I don't see it as a bad thing for us photographers and videographers.
When you look at the options there are way more.
Localy our supermarket started with big screens with advertising above the registers, for 25.00 a month businesses can advertise there.
This will be seen on a lot more locations of course because in fact it's easy money.

Now how is that a good thing ?
All these digital billboards have to be filled and they can hold much more than one advertisement.

Somwere normally there was one big billboard with one shot, there are now a lot of digital billboards that can be rented for very little and hold a lot of shots.

Now I realize that most of them will be filled with amateur shots and rubbish, however there will be companies who want to stand out because they are now really part of a whole, so they will hire a good photographer or videographer and boost their sales that way, and if one goes, the rest will follow because if all is junk there is no need to be better, but if your company is worse than the competition you have to be better, so you're searching for talent.

Because prices for the rent of those billboards is so much lower that before maybe some of that budget will be placed in their photography or video.

A lot of maybes but I think that we will see a lot of options for our work, maybe much more than we can now imagine, but one thing is sure you have to probably do more to earn the same money you had 10 years ago if you were than at the top of the game.

For people not earning a lot because they were not that big shots maybe now is the time to become that because the real big shots will probably not realize they HAVE to adjust because the market is not adjusting to them.

For me it's a future with a lot of options instead of talking about something dieing I would like to talk about a lot of new things getting there.

[fredjeang]

I don't see it as a bad thing for us photographers and videographers.
When you look at the options there are way more.
Localy our supermarket started with big screens with advertising above the registers, for 25.00 a month businesses can advertise there.
This will be seen on a lot more locations of course because in fact it's easy money.

Now how is that a good thing ?
All these digital billboards have to be filled and they can hold much more than one advertisement.

Somwere normally there was one big billboard with one shot, there are now a lot of digital billboards that can be rented for very little and hold a lot of shots.

Now I realize that most of them will be filled with amateur shots and rubbish, however there will be companies who want to stand out because they are now really part of a whole, so they will hire a good photographer or videographer and boost their sales that way, and if one goes, the rest will follow because if all is junk there is no need to be better, but if your company is worse than the competition you have to be better, so you're searching for talent.

Because prices for the rent of those billboards is so much lower that before maybe some of that budget will be placed in their photography or video.

A lot of maybes but I think that we will see a lot of options for our work, maybe much more than we can now imagine, but one thing is sure you have to probably do more to earn the same money you had 10 years ago if you were than at the top of the game.

For people not earning a lot because they were not that big shots maybe now is the time to become that because the real big shots will probably not realize they HAVE to adjust because the market is not adjusting to them.

For me it's a future with a lot of options instead of talking about something dieing I would like to talk about a lot of new things getting there.

I think that we are lucky or unlucky, depends on how we look at it, because we are facing a revolution similar to when the printing shows up in the middle ages and put some crafts into chalenge.

We are living historical moves, and indeed, some will grow, others will sink. But we are currently in a transition period, that is why it is so uncertain and chaotic.

I can understand totally and share in part many Rob's comments.
When someone has worked all his life and loved the craft to a certain way, and suddenly all the game's rules are changing, all a life dedicated in mastering art and technics is questionned
and it is not fun.

I guess if Rob or photographers in similar situation where active professionally today, they would have embrassed different mediums as well and would have learned "like it or not" all the digital soups.
But, I think that many Rob's statements are far from being negatives or nostalgics. I often find many valid thoughts and from another perspective because I belong to a generation, like many here,
where I can understand both what Rob's talking about, and at the same time digital arrived early enough so I can feel comfortable with it.

But this is not a little change that is happening but really really huge.

[Rob C]

Yes, it is huge indeed, and many huge companies have been ruined by the thing along with the earnings of some snappers. I can hardly imagine what happened to Kodak, to Ilford, Rollei etc. etc. Guess they all got bitten in the ass. But by a cobra.

Rob C

[fredjeang]

Yes, it is huge indeed, and many huge companies have been ruined by the thing along with the earnings of some snappers. I can hardly imagine what happened to Kodak, to Ilford, Rollei etc. etc. Guess they all got bitten in the ass. But by a cobra.

Rob C

Yes, but what amazes me it is the overall lack of prediction. What we see now is not new, many signs where anouncing those changes. Big companies have a lot of mediums to ask the right persons about that in order to take the curves properlly instead of precipitate themselves on the wall. What shock me is that they can't do anymore the ostrich politics, but it seems they have difficulties to adapt themselves to the new reality.

As we are in the MF/large format section I will take the MF brands. When I watch them, I feel sad in a way, because I'm 80% sure that most of these companies may disappear if they don't react soon enough and bring other politics, prices and products on the market.
But they don't want to see the things or can't really change their minds. Are they condamned?
When I read the Red's executive statement about the reasons of their delays, I could feel both a slight agresivity and arrogance in between lines, and those are signs that he is uncomfortable.

This economic crisis from the abuses and speculation that was on the construction area was predictable...a simple student in economy would have been able to predict without fault that the all thing was going to collapse.
The Bank of Spain did not stop to warn people from years about those risks but nobody wanted to listen. I see something similar.
Companies want to make fast profits instead of long term politics, they don't understand that they are condemning themselves.
Yes, many companies are disappearing, but have they really listen to the chalenges?

Michael Reichmann, who I fully trust when it comes to understanding this industry, don't stop warning over and over again on this site about the necesity for the companies to be quick, to release products at the correct time. That is where Leica fails. That is where many fail (but not only there). High executives tell us they know what they are doing, but what we see is that they know very little.
This industry is going very fast and the world and the clients and the task itself is moving also fast. But if they would pay more attention in reading the reality they could adapt their politics on time.

2 days ago I was on Foto.....n, a store in Madrid and I assisted again to the same recurrent scenery: a client was hesitating between 2 products, one was Canon and asked the vendor's point of view. The guy said, go for the Canon, because it is the most universal and hassle free and they have the best distribution in Spain. Canon understands something the others don't want to understand.
Last time I asked for a back, there was this Contax 645, one very experienced vendor that I know well looked at me with a smile and this expression  
I asked him why and he showed me the stock of D3x and Canons and told me: these are what most pros are asking for now. We hardly sell backs any more.

We see clearly from many photographers here that there is a huge claim to the MF manufacturers to stop teasing with their LCD and prices etc...do you think they will listen and care about that? I doubt it sincerely.
They are stucked with their thoughts that the MF buyer can pay 4000euros for a reparation smiling because obviously this is the price of his Ferrari 2 tyres parked in front of his luxury mega house. Well, those times are over. Many brands are 10 years in the past when they should be 10 years in the future.

They relly on the kind of very experienced and wealthy photographers profile, that basically comes from film and was used of MF film. But, what are they doing to attract the next generation? 4000euros reparation bills?
Because in internet all those hassles show up. their real problem will start soon. I don't even know if they have not started yet but there is a silence on that matter: taboo topic.
These people, if they want to, have the medium to predict correctly the contexts, the changes and the route to follow. But no...I'm afraid they won't. Like what just happened in the world crisis.

These lack of listening, this ostrich politics...have a very high cost.

IMO.

[Phil Indeblanc]

I have not read through the posts, But something came to mind...


I have always loved advertising, fineart, beauty fashion and all the nuances of these subject because I can take a moment and look closely to the page and stare closer at it and see the detail in the print.  In digital media, the files would have to be larger to appreciate these details, and pan around the page, or scan closer with the eye at the details.  But providing such large files would also make content management very difficult as you will have these large files easily everywhere without limit to agreement.  Much harder to see an ad in X magazine and see it end up in Y magazine across the globe.....This could also close the gap on shooters doing license work vs no usage ristriction work.....(Which I have been pressed to do more of how about you?)

I think the first part of what I am saying, MOST people can relate to and enjoy print.  

So unless the next generation has ZERO appreciation to visual quality, detail, texture, etc ...and that concept is the ONLY king no matter how it is tossed at the viewer....then its something to think about.  It would be a visually sad world if that were the case.

[fredjeang]

I have not read through the posts, But something came to mind...


I have always loved advertising, fineart, beauty fashion and all the nuances of these subject because I can take a moment and look closely to the page and stare closer at it and see the detail in the print.  In digital media, the files would have to be larger to appreciate these details, and pan around the page, or scan closer with the eye at the details.  But providing such large files would also make content management very difficult as you will have these large files easily everywhere without limit to agreement.  Much harder to see an ad in X magazine and see it end up in Y magazine across the globe.....This could also close the gap on shooters doing license work vs no usage ristriction work.....(Which I have been pressed to do more of how about you?)

I think the first part of what I am saying, MOST people can relate to and enjoy print.  

So unless the next generation has ZERO appreciation to visual quality, detail, texture, etc ...and that concept is the ONLY king no matter how it is tossed at the viewer....then its something to think about.  It would be a visually sad world if that were the case.

In the middle ages, highly trained craftmen where copying the books, painting the pics by hand...if you have ever seen what was the quality standard before the printing you are just amazed by the level of technical skills and the artistic result.
But those craftmen where condemned, because the reality called lower costs, speed and big distribution.
That is exactly what is happening again.

I suppose that when the first printers started, those involved in the hand-made-crafts where looking at it with reject and fear. They probably thought that this was not art, that quality was bad etc...
Do we complain about these things now? No of course. We have been used to it, the printing techniques has been evolving during centuries. It is a matter of training.
That will also happen with digital. Supports will evolve, people will be trained, and paper will slowly disappear. In fact, paper will become a sort of luxury, expensive.
Now ? no, but soon.

What is happening is that we are in a period of changes, and some can be very irritating, many things are not working well, in other words it is immature and confusing.
But the wheel is turning without rest and like it or not, those changes are happening.

Now, everybody is spreading the internet with pictures through the Flickr kind of platform. There are many rubbish? yes, but there are also many good photographs. That's the rub.
Also, the youngest generation are hungry of easy fame, fast but very little profits. They have no experience of what earning real money is but they are exploited.
So why the agency would pay a fortune to a studio for campaigns if they have cheap ressources available and with the power of post-production can extract something at least decent?
Well, that is where the pro has to be over the crowd.

The professional photographer will have to be much more creative and multitask to be able to live decently from his art.
Yes, there is all a philosophy, a way of doing that is disapearing for others more agressive and demanding methods.
But there are also new opportunities.

[Rob C]

Now, everybody is spreading the internet with pictures through the Flickr kind of platform. There are many rubbish? yes, but there are also many good photographs. That's the rub.
Also, the youngest generation are hungry of easy fame, fast but very little profits. They have no experience of what earning real money is but they are exploited.
So why the agency would pay a fortune to a studio for campaigns if they have cheap ressources available and with the power of post-production can extract something at least decent?
Well, that is where the pro has to be over the crowd.

The professional photographer will have to be much more creative and multitask to be able to live decently from his art.
Yes, there is all a philosophy, a way of doing that is disapearing for others more agressive and demanding methods.
But there are also new opportunities.

But there is a conflict between the two positions, Fred.

I believe you are essentially right to say that there is an enormous quantity of mixed-value material available, and that it will be exploited. But, I don't think you can take that basis and then extrapolate that if the 'agencies' are unwilling to pay good money because they have such wide choices of source, there is an automatic opportunity for the good photographer to exploit it.

He may well get a large share of the available work (he already did with the old system) but at the 20 cent prices that some charge, what's the point of being a great photographer? You would have to work yourself to death before you earned enough to allow your family to eat! Right - the agency might ask - why do you want a family, you silly young man, when you could be working night and day for US and we would even consider giving you a credit line sometimes; think of the glory! All artists suffered, that's success!

I can't reconcile the two positions at all.

Rob C

[JoeKitchen]

Reading your comments, I can't help but feel there are a lot a pessimists out there.  

I think a lot of you out there are forgetting that we are in a recession.  Think long term, not short term.  I think the basic business model for photography will never change, only the fashion that we create images and how they are used changes.  New medias are going to take over, and they will be cheaper to run ads in and will be located in many more locations.  I think so many more locations that if we only allowed our images to be used in only one, there would not be enough photographers to fill every space.  And cheap to the point where clients will want to use the images in more place.  So we need to take that into account with our licensing and pricing.  We need to change, not so much our pricing, but our licensing; make it look like we are giving more.  In stead of being specific, be broad, like you can use the images in any small ambient space in this location instead of this size at these place and so on.  

Now one could make the argument that we are giving away more for less, but I do not think so.  Look at the example of ambient display.  Digital ambients run a rotation of images, images are only seen for a few seconds every couple of minutes; maybe an ad on a single screen will be displayed 10% of the time.  With print ambient, the image never changes and is display 100% of the time.  That means the same ad would need to ran on ten screens to be displayed the same amount of time as before.  

These digital ad devices are going to take over.  While they be more expensive to install, they are cheaper to run (no printing cost), and, where before you could sell that space to only one business for $150 a month, you can sell it to 8 business at $25 a month.  Cheaper and you get more money; if you owned a store, you would need to an idiot not realize this.  Adapt to the market, it's not going to adapt to us.  

In terms of the MFDB companies, they're not going to go out of business.  There will always be people who want the best and will be willing pay for it.  Look at cars, they are just a machine that gets you from one place to another.  Why spend the money for a Lamborghini or Ferrari when you could just buy a Honda.  If you think about it, it does not make sense, especially today.  50 years ago when we had carburetors and other inferior devices, one could make the argument of reliability, but today, no.  Cars run when they are turned on, no one expects differently.  Same thing with MFDB, they will be around.

[fredjeang]

Reading your comments, I can't help but feel there are a lot a pessimists out there.  

I think a lot of you out there are forgetting that we are in a recession.  Think long term, not short term.  I think the basic business model for photography will never change, only the fashion that we create images and how they are used changes.  New medias are going to take over, and they will be cheaper to run ads in and will be located in many more locations.  I think so many more locations that if we only allowed our images to be used in only one, there would not be enough photographers to fill every space.  And cheap to the point where clients will want to use the images in more place.  So we need to take that into account with our licensing and pricing.  We need to change, not so much our pricing, but our licensing; make it look like we are giving more.  In stead of being specific, be broad, like you can use the images in any small ambient space in this location instead of this size at these place and so on.  

Now one could make the argument that we are giving away more for less, but I do not think so.  Look at the example of ambient display.  Digital ambients run a rotation of images, images are only seen for a few seconds every couple of minutes; maybe an ad on a single screen will be displayed 10% of the time.  With print ambient, the image never changes and is display 100% of the time.  That means the same ad would need to ran on ten screens to be displayed the same amount of time as before.  

These digital ad devices are going to take over.  While they be more expensive to install, they are cheaper to run (no printing cost), and, where before you could sell that space to only one business for $150 a month, you can sell it to 8 business at $25 a month.  Cheaper and you get more money; if you owned a store, you would need to an idiot not realize this.  Adapt to the market, it's not going to adapt to use.  

In terms of the MFDB companies, they're not going to go out of business.  There will always be people who want the best and will be willing pay for it.  Look at cars, they are just a machine that gets you from one place to another.  Why spend the money for a Lamborghini or Ferrari when you could just buy a Honda.  If you think about it, it does not make sense, especially today.  50 years ago when we had carburetors and other inferior devices, one could make the argument of reliability, but today, no.  Cars run when they are turned on, no one expects differently.  Some thing with MFDB, they will be around.

MFDB will be around? No doubt. A few, probably 2 or 3 manufacturers.
It depends a lot on how they will adapt to the changes and how they will respond to many photographers claim.
What I can tell you is that many experienced and active photographers that I know here, and that where working MF are changing to CaNikon when it's time to upgrade.
This is recent. The reasons? same explained here many times: fed-up of tether task, lcd, higher isos performance, cost etc...
Very curiously, many who are using mf are still using film. (not kidding). But I love MF gear, and I plan to get a decent back as soon as I can.
So what I report is not because I want to criticise MF, on the contrary, it is just happening.

I agree in most of your points. I think the posts here where showing both preocupation or pessimism and at the same time exitement with the new opportunities and ways of expression.
And these 2 contradictory feelings are IMO representative of the profession's state.
Personally, I'm completly optimistic even if I think that many that are on place now will have serious difficulties.

Best regards.

[ziocan]

I think today we have more opportunities than ever.
There are much more medias that need images that there have ever been.
Plus, most of photographers secret dream: filming, has become possible thanks to new technologies that allow media to display motion images at a low cost and allow to produce motion images with much lower budget and need less expertise than before.

Also it is not true that traveling to beautiful exotic locations is over and it will be replaced by some computer technology.
If your producer is smart enough, you can get in most cases, free air fares and hotels for all your crew almost anywhere in the world, not mentioning that clients still are willing to pay on order to shoot under the sun on a white beach and still prefer the real thing.
Those clients that would have a computer generated background, are the same that would have never travelled to begin with.

[Phil Indeblanc]

Plus, most of photographers secret dream: filming, has become possible thanks to new technologies that allow media to display motion images at a low cost and allow to produce motion images with much lower budget and need less expertise than before.

Those clients that would have a computer generated background, are the same that would have never travelled to begin with.

I don't think that MOST Image Makers, have a secret desire to do video.  I for one could care less. But thats my problem if I cared to chase the $.

There are many budgets that have been cut....I hear how ADs look for shooters local to the location.  The AD gets the scene and now works around it.  There are so many shooters these days...Its more like, .."Well, do we know the local talent to have them shoot?"  


And as far as Licensing...All my competition has been doing unlimited license for over 4 or 5 years now...Ya think I would even be considered if I didn't?  Nope.  These are direct clients. Agencies, I don't even know where to start to even cater to them.  I wish there was a breakdown of what agencies specialize in what catagory of advertising....Like the drink ads are mostly done by, X, and the luxury ads are done by Y, etc. That would be a nice spreadsheet.

I agree with print slowly but surely being a luxury, and thats whats sad...I see more and more power and strength going to those who feed on the masses, and that is whats will continue to happen.  

It looks like to pull ahead, one needs to reinvent a Popup flash modifier, do some workshops on lighting glamour, and maybe advertise buodior shoots and call it happiness?
ouch.