Photography's Unintended Obsolescence...?....

Photkwerks - But couldn't someone who plays the organ say the same thing? Shoot film, have fun, don't sweat it, the doom and gloomers will be happy to hear your concerns, be an ostrich, who cares that we can't fly, we are huge, run fast and have other great attributes that other birds don't!

photoworks68 said:

The thing is that now, one by one, manufacturer are stopping making film. First there was polaroid stopping making instant film, then kodak stopping making Kodachrome and now Ektachrome film, What next ? Color and Black and white film ? At least a musician can still chose to play with an analog instrument. Soon, a photographer will not have any choice but to use digital in order to pursue photography. That time may be coming sooner than later and I dread it.

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i wouldn't worry about it ...
there may be fewer companies making and selling film and traditional materials
but there will always be someone making it and selling it.

i couldn't agree with andy more ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH3QNSsWoeg

I am not as captivated by the materials availability thing as I am the big picture, what will photography even be considered in 20 years thing. I have at least 10 years worth of film and chemistry on hand right now as it is if I shoot at a normal pace, so all I need to spend money on now is paper, matting, etc.

But the the photograph in 20 years, what will it be if not us shooting and printing black and white? Will it be full color holograms shot by advertising photographers draped over products in windows? Will it be just too much virtual us?

PKM-25 said:

But the the photograph in 20 years, what will it be if not us shooting and printing black and white? Will it be full color holograms shot by advertising photographers draped over products in windows? Will it be just too much virtual us?

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I personally believe those too-far-down-the-road-theoretical-ponderings-of-the-evolution-of-photography-as-an-art-form, are too far and too gray for me to understand, especially on the commercial side, considering I do this as a hobby. I do hope you pro's can find a footing while one staying true to himself/herself. You have my admiration. I just keep shooting and smiling that I have the time/resources/health to continue regardless of the evolution of the art of photography due to technology, taste, price of tea. Look at how bad some tech companies missed the smartphone/tablet mobile computing bandwagon, that kind of miss happened to folks who are supposed to do this for a living (i.e. Blackberry). To pick the trend of an art form is even more nebulous.

Why worry what's going to happen in 15 to 20 years if you have enough film for 10 years? I'll be thrilled if I'm just alive in 15 years. Is any of this really that important? Haven't you adjusted to changes in the past? Don't you think we'll adjust to new things? Isn't it exciting that new things will happen and that we'll have a chance to learn and explore them? Why not take a positive view rather than negative?

Relax Andy, I am a pretty positive person, although I don't shoot that much positive anymore, just negative...maybe I am a negative person, LOL!

In any case, I rarely start threads like this, it was born of conversations I have with people in general. All it is supposed to do is spawn thought. I like to use my mind a lot, so something as wacked out as is got me thinking, that's all....

PKM-25 said:

Because I think the very thing that is driving photography to record levels of hype will have simply urinated too long in the fresh water supply that drew people in and that thing is technology. People want a challenge in their pastime or vocation, if the perception now is anyone can do it and there are billions of images lost in a sea of it self, why would they bother and what does that hold for the future of photography it self?

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Ya know, that's been said since dry plates came into vogue, right? And then Eastman produced the Brownie and the rest of them. And the world went to hell in a handbasket. And now we have digital, and look where it's got us.

What would happen if a major magazine put drawings and paintings on their cover for a year? No photographs. Would people notice, in this day and age? The magazine's website would also have to totally ditch photographs for something like that to be noticed. But I wonder, what would people think? Would they clamor and scream about accuracy? Are we paranoid about honesty? Would each artist's rendition need to be backed up with a photograph? Or could we trust the artist?

Photography is here to stay, in one form or another. We've just had the introduction of a 41Mp phone. So we will be seeing in 15 years 100Mp+ phones. And for the most part they'll be photographing the same old garbage around us.

But there is also the fact of the physical photo-graph. Yeah, I put in the hyphen on purpose. A BIG sheet of film, and a good lens. What does the lens do with the subject? Our brush is the lens, our canvas is the film, and our paint is light. We are not simply creating an image, but a physical object. The print. That thing which is held in the hands or placed on the wall. Or maybe the film itself is the final form, i.e., 8x10 Kodachrome (we hardly knew ye! I sure didn't!).

We are dependent on materials which must be made in huge industrial quantity. You don't get a Kodachrome image without the Kodachrome film! And that is really the crux of the matter. Paints are made by grinding pigments. Film is made on special machines tended by highly trained people. Big difference.

So where will photography go? Really, it's already there. The snaps are still being made, but it's the quality that has changed. The permanance has changed.

Brian C. Miller said:

...

We are dependent on materials which must be made in huge industrial quantity. You don't get a Kodachrome image without the Kodachrome film! And that is really the crux of the matter. Paints are made by grinding pigments. Film is made on special machines tended by highly trained people. Big difference.

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oi. A statement like that is like baiting a big, sharp hook with chocolate cake. No matter how hard I try, I can't resist.

No. No. No.

I'll give you Kodachrome and most of the color processes, but it's important to not lump together all analog materials. We are no more or less 'dependent' on industry than any other aspect of modern life. A painter could theoretically grind a few earth pigments and paint with cat hair tied to a twig. But realistically? The tools and materials any painter uses come from an industrial operation, be it large or small. B&W photographic materials, in their most basic forms, are far less complex than most paints. George Eastman started Kodak in his mother's kitchen.

I make film. It is very good film. It gets better and better the more I make film. Someone with more between the ears could do even better. That will happen as soon as statements like "film is made on special machines tended by highly trained people" are finally laid to rest. In the meantime and well after, film, including color, is being made by highly trained people. If you're really looking for an excuse to shoot with your phone, go for it. Some very creative stuff is coming from phone cameras. Photographers have access to the best of all worlds -- now and going forward. Don't let Kodak's suicide confuse the issue.

My latest fun with diy film: http://www.thelightfarm.com/cgi-bin/htmlgen.py?content=07Mar2012

Denise

dwross said:

oi. A statement like that is like baiting a big, sharp hook with chocolate cake. No matter how hard I try, I can't resist.

My latest fun with diy film: http://www.thelightfarm.com/cgi-bin/htmlgen.py?content=07Mar2012

Denise

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Wow. Really nice. Keep it up!

dwross said:

oi. A statement like that is like baiting a big, sharp hook with chocolate cake. No matter how hard I try, I can't resist.

No. No. No.

I'll give you Kodachrome and most of the color processes, but it's important to not lump together all analog materials. We are no more or less 'dependent' on industry than any other aspect of modern life. A painter could theoretically grind a few earth pigments and paint with cat hair tied to a twig. But realistically? The tools and materials any painter uses come from an industrial operation, be it large or small. B&W photographic materials, in their most basic forms, are far less complex than most paints. George Eastman started Kodak in his mother's kitchen.

I make film. It is very good film. It gets better and better the more I make film. Someone with more between the ears could do even better. That will happen as soon as statements like "film is made on special machines tended by highly trained people" are finally laid to rest. In the meantime and well after, film, including color, is being made by highly trained people. If you're really looking for an excuse to shoot with your phone, go for it. Some very creative stuff is coming from phone cameras. Photographers have access to the best of all worlds -- now and going forward. Don't let Kodak's suicide confuse the issue.

My latest fun with diy film: http://www.thelightfarm.com/cgi-bin/htmlgen.py?content=07Mar2012

Denise

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Behind the satisfaction of being "off the grid" is the unadmitted knowing that there's a grid to go back to. This just might not be the case for all us APUG chickens, no?

ME Super said:

Wow. Really nice. Keep it up!

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+1 I agree!

And now that I have a good medium format projector, I am able to admire some 1920s colour glass slides I inherited from Jack Mitchell that are gorgeous. People were doing beautiful work ...even in beautiful colour... long before there umpteen zillion consumer films.

PMK-25 asks: "Because I think the very thing that is driving photography to record levels of hype will have simply urinated too long in the fresh water supply that drew people in and that thing is technology. People want a challenge in their pastime or vocation, if the perception now is anyone can do it and there are billions of images lost in a sea of it self, why would they bother and what does that hold for the future of photography it self?"

100 years ago, Kodak's 'Brownie' camera placed photography, which was until then a rich man's game, into the hands of the amateur. We've all benefitted from the technological changes that cellulose roll films ushered in - how many countless millions of family snaps wouldn't have been made if the only way to photograph was with wet glass plates? Digital tech has democratised photography; in doing so it has made photography cheap and ubiquitous. Wanna take a picture? Grab your phone or iPad and off we go. How many pictures will have utility? Probably loads. How many will be masterpieces? Not many.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. People use photography for many purposes - most aren't artists and most don't want to be artists. They just want a record of a family holiday, an evening out or that amazing sunset behind the hills over there. It's just the same as reaching for your pocket 110 or compact 135 camera. The same skill is required as the first Kodak Brownie - absolutely none. "You push the button - we do the rest". A chimp could do it. And if the result happens to be something blurry, poorly exposed or otherwise rubbishy - who cares? Just throw it away and try again. We've all been there, done that. I'm talking of non-expert use here - it's a different matter if one's being paid for the job!

I think that if technology draws people into photography, well maybe that's a good thing. Sure, they'll get a DSLR or some other cool piece of digi-kit, play with it and think they're David Bailey. But they'll never actually BE as good as Bailey, Adams, Godwin etc etc unless they learn the basics, learn to use the camera and learn the art of seeing. It was always so. The challenge is to rise above the sea of rubbish to produce interesting and original work. Only then do they rise above the poseurs and happy snappers. Film or digital, crap is crap and the skilled use of technology trumps technology for its own sake every time. It's skill that distinguishes the artist from the amateur, not technology. As for the medium itself, I think that its future is secure because people will always want to make pictures of their friends, their environment and themselves. Until the nuclear holocaust or until the oil runs out, that is! These are my thoughts and opinions - your mileage may vary.

Cheers,
kevs.

kevs said:

It's skill that distinguishes the artist from the amateur, not technology.

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+1 Absolutely!

I love these "the world is not what I want it to be" diatribes. Photography is going to survive in spite of what the author thinks. Naturally, in the grand silver age of photography, it was full of mediocre work too--the the photo he posted is a great example of that mediocrity. The same mundane stuff was produced as it is today. In fact nothing has changed. Technology has just made it easier to make mediocre work and show it. Just as developments in film technology did the same. It fact, nothing fundamentally has changed.

Still, a great artist always blames the technology--isn't that how it goes.

Just a few mins ago an interesting article that hits on many many points made here posted:

"For the first time ever," John Berger remarked, "images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free."

"Advances in photographic technology -- Kodak to Polaroid to Canon to Lytro -- have been shifting the cultural economics of pictures, transforming them from something scarce and therefore artistic and into something abundant and therefore mundane."

PMK-25, you wanted to ponder theoreticals of the future, this might just be it...

Per
http://theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/what-that-puppy-photo-on-pinterest-says-about-the-future-of-the-internet/254174/

Hikari said:

I love these "the world is not what I want it to be" diatribes. Photography is going to survive in spite of what the author thinks.

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While I won't try to speak for him, I don't think the raw survival of photography was the OP's original point. Rather, I think he was simply asking - of himself and others - what they think photography might be in 20 or so years. Given the rapidity of change in photographic technologies, I personally think it's a valid question, that...

I also strongly agree that the larger question regarding the rapid digitization of our entire culture hits a greater fundamental issue dead on. And not for the better. I've already deleted two longish pending replies to that question that I'd started because I didn't want to pull his thread off-topic.

Ken

Ken Nadvornick said:

I've already deleted two longish pending replies to that question that I'd started because I didn't want to pull his thread off-topic.

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Errm, you might have actually pulled it back on topic since that is where the "Canary in a coal mine" might be in terms of the perception of photography in the year 2032....:munch:

Two years ago, David Bradley ( top dog at the Atlantic ) and Michael Eisner were chatting and saw me with a M3 around my neck. Michael asked about it so all three of us got to talking. In the end, we all agreed that film was making a bit of a comeback in fine art and indie film circles...in fact that was the very term Eisner used, it would come full circle.

I don't know where photography will end up in 20 years, but I know where I am going with it...

zsas said:

Just a few mins ago an interesting article that hits on many many points made here posted:

"For the first time ever," John Berger remarked, "images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free."

"Advances in photographic technology -- Kodak to Polaroid to Canon to Lytro -- have been shifting the cultural economics of pictures, transforming them from something scarce and therefore artistic and into something abundant and therefore mundane."

PMK-25, you wanted to ponder theoreticals of the future, this might just be it...

Per
http://theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/what-that-puppy-photo-on-pinterest-says-about-the-future-of-the-internet/254174/

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You know, I dunno guys. Sometimes I feel like the field and "art" of photography is just so massively overwhelmed with crap that I find it difficult to sort through it all. In fact I find myself defensively viewing other people's photography. Not my good friends necessarily, but the sheer amount out there. It feels like the gems are so buried now, in a massive sea of mediocrity that technology has helped grow.

I find that I just want to hang with old school tri-x/f8 and be there folks because they feel the most sane in this maelstrom of photographs.