Future Photography

David Brown said:

OK, let's take an obvious (one of many) example: Yosemite. I simply love cameras and photos and do it for myself. I know I'll never be able to exceed the greats (or even equal them). But how, how, I ask, could I go to someplace like Yosemite and NOT take my cameras?

Oh, well, I'll leave the Zen issues to smarter people ...

If anyone truly feels it's all been done, and they are not worthy, please PM me and I'll send you an address so you can send me all of your cameras! :rolleyes:

Cheers y'all.

David

Click to expand...

erm... are you sure you're disagreeing with the right person David? I said just because it's been photographed before, doesn't mean it can't be photographed again.

Why paint, write, scuplt, act, or dance, its all been done before? Because its there. I take photographs because I choose to. For a more practical reason is that the photographs that I have taken are of people and places that no longer exist, and my style or sensibility is very much different than the generation of photographers that preceded me, or the photographers that will come after me.

Paul

fred said:

Will photography eventually make itself obsolete through overproduction?

Click to expand...

I guess it depends upon the purpose of the photograph. If it is simply to do a theme, like landscapes, street reportage, whatever, to have a print of that genre to hang on the wall, then sure its all been done before many times.

However, if the photograph is intended to capture a slice of time and preserve that record of what was there at a given time, then photography can never become obsolete.

I was recently looking through an album of my car clubs past events, and it was interesting just to look at the regular cars parked in the street 20 years ago. Things like Pinto wagons with the fake wood on the sides parked behind a 71 Chevelle. As a representation of what existed, each of these photographs are unique and can't be done again.

No matter if there is a fancy digital retrival system for stock photos, new ones would always have to be added just to capture the essance of life at any given time. If we'd all quit photographing in 1980 "because its all been done before" we'd have no idea of what a street scene looked like in 1990.

Andy K said:

erm... are you sure you're disagreeing with the right person David? I said just because it's been photographed before, doesn't mean it can't be photographed again.

Click to expand...

Mea culpa! Actually, Andy, I was trying to agree with you. Apologies for my poor communication skills.

(I was also trying to lighten the mood a little. I often realize AFTER I've posted something that nobody can see my tongue's cheeky placement ... :confused: )

David

Just suppose that in some hypothetical future that every possible picture exists or can be created automatically upon request...

To operate such a system you'd need to go into this hypothetical system and search for the subject that you require. You'd then need to place them in the arrangement that you require, and select the camera postion, and virtual lens and focus to frame the image. You'd then need to select a virtual exposure, and virtual film repsonse.

Of course most people my choose to select "auto" for most of these, but then most people select automatic when they use a film camera.

Every possible picture does exist already in a theoretical sense. If you give a million monkeys a million disposable cameras you could collect every one. The problem of searching them to find the right one is EXACTLY the same as going out and shooting the image for yourself - apart from fun stuff of being out in the world.

Photography is totally about SELECTING an image, searching the world to find it, and finding the optimal version of a particular time and place. Place that all on a computer and it's really no easier than doing it for real...

Ian