Photography is "over"

[gr82bart]

"The culture has changed. It has all gone. I really don’t know why we stick to the word photography any more. There should be a different term, but nobody cared about finding it.”
- Wim Wenders

https://www.theguardian.com/artandd...laroids-instant-stories-photographers-gallery

Is photography really over?

Regards, Art

 

[MartinCrabtree]

 

[Paul Manuell]

Well I load film into the camera and take photos, and will continue to do so for as long as film is still available, so for me, no, photography's definitely not over.

 

[Ces1um]

I think websites like photrio prove that it isn't dead. Youtube series like the art of photography back that up as well. I think people still take deliberate photographs of themselves and family and I'd qualify that as photography. Those pictures taken to make sure you're getting the correct type of cereal or a reminder photo of a list of groceries to pick up- that wouldn't qualify as photography to me. I think those type of photos are on the rise, but to say photography is over is simply click bait on the Guardian's part.

 

[bdial]

I'd say that it isn't over.
IMO, photography has never been only about the image, to use his term, and "showing, sending and maybe remembering" has always been a component. That's really where photography started, and being about the image came later.

 

[removed account4]

Is photography really over?

it depends what photography is...
a person image that is shared with others in an intimate setting
something tangible ... for most people yes photography is something different.
they don't make prints or have prints they have files shared with a million people at once.
but still there are some people that make tangible objects ... that are harder to share.

i was reading letters fox talbot sent to john hershel in the 1840s ( 1830s ) he was sharing with him
some photographs he made and said the postal service might have creased them, just iron them or put them
under something flat and heavy ... no IM, 000111's something tangible.

but that is what photography morphed into in the 1800s through the age of mechanical reproduction ...

seems some photographers saw the fork in the road and took it, others kept going.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

These days if something stupid about photography it steady comes from the Guardian, PP or NYT. Too much of too limited or non-photography people.
Photography as same as it was. Young and/or willing are taking it. Old farts are keeps on talking how they couldn't take it anymore.

 

[guangong]

So is drawing, lithography, etching, wood engraving, and painting. During the 18th & early 19th centuries a complete education included training in drawing in order to record observations. Photography eliminated this need but people still draw and pencils and pens are still available. Photography also replaced the commercial reproduction of illustrations using etching and lithography. For the most part digital capture has replaced commercial photography (think of all the do-dads sold by Leitz and Zeiss that can now be accomplished in a snap with a computer), but this does not mean that photography a creative artistic endeavor will disappear, as APUG attests.

 

[removed account4]

So is drawing, lithography, etching, wood engraving, and painting. During the 18th & early 19th centuries a complete education included training in drawing in order to record observations. Photography eliminated this need but people still draw and pencils and pens are still available. Photography also replaced the commercial reproduction of illustrations using etching and lithography. For the most part digital capture has replaced commercial photography (think of all the do-dads sold by Leitz and Zeiss that can now be accomplished in a snap with a computer), but this does not mean that photography a creative artistic endeavor will disappear, as APUG attests.

no,
the difference is that when offset printing came on hard, photography became its illustrator,
and the whole field of consumer photography is from that path, not the path of using film and paper
and making photographs ...
there are 2 kind of photography
one that is fueled by the publishing industry ( chromogenic film was from that too )
and the one that isn't ...
compared to the consumer strain, the publication strain, the printed strain ( as in printed/electronic media )
film and paper photography is different and one could say dead ..

if painting and etching &c became a mechanical process that was the main way publications illustrated articles they might suffered the same fate.

photography's greatest thing ( multiplicity and democraticisation of the photographic image )
ended up being its biggest flaw ... ( as far as i am concerned )

walter benjamin was a smart guy
http://faculty.winthrop.edu/stockk/Contemporary Art/Benjamin mechanical reproduction.pdf

 

[cramej]

"The culture has changed. It has all gone. I really don’t know why we stick to the word photography any more. There should be a different term, but nobody cared about finding it.”
- Wim Wenders

https://www.theguardian.com/artandd...laroids-instant-stories-photographers-gallery

Is photography really over?

Regards, Art

Photography is not over but evidently Wenders has given up.

 

[faberryman]

Perhaps the author and photographer interviewed have not heard of Instax. It seems very popular. It is certainly a money maker for Fuji and they are manufacturing the film 24/7.

 

[BrianVS]

Hopefully peel-apart Polaroid Film will make a comeback. Looks like he uses a Model 240 with the Zeiss viewfinder in place of the original. I have one just like it, also modified it to use 3 AAA batteries. And a Model 250.
I still have a few packs of 690 in the Fridge, so it is not over for me.

Polaroid 250 and 240+ by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

 

[removedacct1]

I'm happy to continue doing what I do, separate from a world obsessed with iPhones and selfies - the instant gratification model. What I do has absolutely nothing to do with that paradigm. Judging my own work against a world awash in a tsunami of Instagram-filtered imagery is comparing Apples to Seahorses. If I allow Wim Wenders' opinions on the photographic medium matter to me, then I have to judge what I do accordingly and that, it would seem to me, will only suck the joy out of this medium I love. Why would I want to do that??

 

[Ian Leake]

Didn’t Peter Henry Emerson say something similar a hundred years ago? He was wrong too.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

It's not over 'til the fat lady sings.

 

[MattKing]

I'm not sure that respondents to this thread are paying enough attention to the other parts of what Wim Wenders said, in particular: "You produced something that was, in itself, a singular moment. As such, it had a certain sacredness. That whole notion is gone."
And more importantly:
“The culture has changed. It has all gone. I really don’t know why we stick to the word photography any more. There should be a different term, but nobody cared about finding it.”
It seems to me he would be fairly comfortable here on the "analogue" part of PHOTRIO - we could reassure him that it hasn't gone, it is just very much more localized in niche neighbourhoods.

 

[railwayman3]

Of course it's not over, it's become more of a specialist, artistic, endeavour, rather than just a way of making quick snapshots. There's also a new interest in specialist techniques and "alternative" processes.

You might as well say that other artistic pursuits are over, drawing, painting, pottery, and everything else. I was in a large London art store a few weeks ago and was amazed at the variety of supplies available for every possible kind of artistic work, far more than would have even been thought of ten years ago.....definitely not over.

 

[Down Under]

Anyone who believes photography is "over" should get themselves a Rolleiflex, and learn to use it.

The Rollei TLR really brings you back to earth. To me, it's what true photography is really about. Loading the thing with 120 film is a challenge in itself.

Try it and see.

 

[DWThomas]

Ha! Encaustic is a method of painting that uses pigments in melted wax. The Egyptians used it to decorate the sarcophagi for their mummies. Besides the fact those have held up remarkably well for thousands of years, people still paint with encaustic today. I've seen one guy work with a bunch of small metal cups in a big electric frying pan for his palette -- reckon that's not historically correct ....

(Everything is over -- eventually ...)

 

[Wallendo]

It sounds like an older man complaining of the loss of the good old days.

iPhone photographs are more commonly associated with showing one's food than describing a moment. But, these images can capture a moment as well as a polaroid, with the bonus that you can now give the photo to your target while keeping a perfect copy for yourself. There are now millions of selfies and food pics being taken, but I suspect there are just as many meaningful photographs being taken as ever. It's just that the sheer volume of detritus overshadows the meaningful.

On the other hand, how we view photographs has changed with younger generations. Instead of holding a photograph for a few moments and appreciating its memories, there is a tendency to look for a few seconds and then swipe to the next image. I suspect the changes in how we view photographs is much much greater than he we make the photographs; i.e., digital viewing has had a greater social impact that digital photo-making.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Yet another journalist in search of his first original thought. Spoiler Alert: It will never happen.

 

[pdeeh]

Definitely over.

 

[removed account4]

It sounds like an older man complaining of the loss of the good old days.

i don't know ...

out of the MILLIONS who were shooting film in the 1970s+1980s which is what wim wenders' polaroids are about
THAT time period ( and before that )
a tiny fraction of a fraction make photographs and use film and make pictures like it was still " 1976 "
i thint it is a fair generality to make, that isn't to say it is over for YOU but for most people ...
most people don't even know you can still get 35mm film, or 120 film or anything else ...
and 30year old air port security people who don't even know what 35mm film is ( a couple of years ago ) ...
seems like its over ...

 

[NJH]

The funny thing is when I talk to non-photographer family and friends or show them a print the first thing they always say is how nice it is to see a print and people don't have that permanency any more that only a solid physical capture of the moment can convey. Did the culture really change or did people forget or become lazy? Sooner or later people will realise that 50,000 pictures on a computer that you never look at is a form of insanity.

 

[TheRook]

The funny thing is when I talk to non-photographer family and friends or show them a print the first thing they always say is how nice it is to see a print and people don't have that permanency any more that only a solid physical capture of the moment can convey. Did the culture really change or did people forget or become lazy? Sooner or later people will realise that 50,000 pictures on a computer that you never look at is a form of insanity.

Furthermore, many of those thousands of pictures that only exist in the digital realm will likely be permanently lost 20 years from now. The only way to preserve a digital image long term is to copy and backup them up regularly, which most people simply don't take the time do. In contrast, prints require very little maintenance for long term preservation.