Photography is dead?

[Damphousse]

Wow. I am glad you sold your business. Weddings are no place for misogyny.

 

​The way he stated his point was not elegant but there may be something to it.  On average women aren't as technically minded as men... at least in the western world.  Instead of ignoring the fact something should be done about it.  I for one am glad that there a lot of people in the United States who think it is important to get more women excited and involved with technology and science.

And the flip side is it is obvious guys go way overboard on the technical side.  If there were only women in photography I think the gearism would be a fraction of what it is.

 

Also, who the hell wants those horribly vulgar lighting all over the subject? Look at Jeff Acough if you want to see a good wedding photos, not that vulgar trash on a beach!

​I think what he was illustrating is Photoshop is absolutely not a MUST.  You can do the bulk of the heavy lifting in the camera assuming you know how to use your gear... which a lot of the amateurs jumping into the wedding photography game don't.

[Wulf]

​I'm going to assume you've never actually used an iphone... nor film.  iphones aren't even the best smartphone cameras.

​I had an old one. And I really like the colour rendition as much as my customers in the right conditions, allthough I am not an expert on this aspect (but I have seen a lot of really ugly pictures from other brands).

But you are right, should have written 'mobile phone' instead.

 

[Wulf]

I thought a bit.

 

What I said:

An astonishing quantity of iconic still captures, which emotional aspects survives not only decades but cultural chances as well, could have been shot with an {popular brand of mobile phones}, as the making of this photos didn't include any complicated gear like big tele lenses or sophisticated lightening.

Another user suggests I had no clue, because this {popular brand of mobile phones} is overrated in his opinion. I have no doubt that this might be true, but does it matter?

Judge by yourself

 

https://www.google.de/search?q=iconic+photographs&biw=1600&bih=785&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=rFa_VIPEK66P7AaQsoGABg&ved=0CCAQsAQ

 

 

 

[sunyata]

Photography is not dead, asking is photography dead, is dead. 

[Brian Luce]

Hey Ed, I like that beach shot. It looks like a lot of work went in to it. Has a surrealistic look. 

[mtheory]

Photography today is as special or unique as brushing your teeth. It stopped being a true craft or challenge, it has become ubiquitous, casual...therefore invisible. Look at instagram...I mean...it's just full of insanely great imagery being shot almost effortlessly in real time, and the more you look at it, the more you see that everything has been done now...it's all a copy of a copy of a copy...endless repetition. Essentially, when a discipline has nowhere else to go, when the boundaries have been explored, when it exhausts itself, this is when it dies.

It's like...if everyone was an astronaut with a space craft that could do lightspeed travel...we'd get bored with space pretty quickly. Almost everyone is a photographer now.

P.S I'm referring to photography artistically, not the commercial side, which is alive and well as ever. 

[mtheory]

I didn't like Joel Meyerwitz's point about Leica being superior due to the "dramatic but unseen context" its viewfinder provides...while it may be true for the photographer at the time of capture, the eventual audience looking at prints will never be aware of that unseen context, so it is irrelevant in my view. The frame IS where you provide both the subject AND the context, whatever is unseen literally no longer exists in photography. 

[Axel]

I didn't like Joel Meyerwitz's point about Leica being superior due to the "dramatic but unseen context" its viewfinder provides...while it may be true for the photographer at the time of capture, the eventual audience looking at prints will never be aware of that unseen context, so it is irrelevant in my view. The frame IS where you provide both the subject AND the context, whatever is unseen literally no longer exists in photography. 

​You are right of course, but it's all taken out of context. Having seen some threehundred big scale prints by Meyerowitz in two hours, I dare to divide them roughly in three completely different styles: 

1. Portrait photography. Here is one of the most famous:

2. Landscapes and the like. Big enlargements, photos taken with an 8 x 10 camera, Ground Zero is a motif:

3. ... and, finally, his own specialty, 'street photography'. Snapshots of people on the street. To anticipate where they will be in the next blink of an eye to get exactly the composition he feels right at the given moment, he has to watch what's not yet in his frame. That's where the 'primitive' Leica comes in handy ...

(looks staged, but isn't)

[Danyyyel]

Photography today is as special or unique as brushing your teeth. It stopped being a true craft or challenge, it has become ubiquitous, casual...therefore invisible. Look at instagram...I mean...it's just full of insanely great imagery being shot almost effortlessly in real time, and the more you look at it, the more you see that everything has been done now...it's all a copy of a copy of a copy...endless repetition. Essentially, when a discipline has nowhere else to go, when the boundaries have been explored, when it exhausts itself, this is when it dies.

It's like...if everyone was an astronaut with a space craft that could do lightspeed travel...we'd get bored with space pretty quickly. Almost everyone is a photographer now.

P.S I'm referring to photography artistically, not the commercial side, which is alive and well as ever. 

​I guess you can more or less say the same thing from every form of art. everything is just a repetition, where do you see true innovation in music, fashion, painting etc. It seems that every corner has been covered and artist just create around those lines. For film for example, the last boundary has been reached since 3D/digital effects has become so realistic that every thing is possible. But if your thoughts are about gallery work etc it is as much about who is taking the photo (history of work) as much as the photo itself. By that I mean that the value of the work of the artist, his history/research/sensibility count as much for the photo than just some lucky snapshot out of hundreds or thousand of photos of someone on instagram. 

[mtheory]

​I guess you can more or less say the same thing from every form of art. everything is just a repetition, where do you see true innovation in music, fashion, painting etc. It seems that every corner has been covered and artist just create around those lines. For film for example, the last boundary has been reached since 3D/digital effects has become so realistic that every thing is possible. But if your thoughts are about gallery work etc it is as much about who is taking the photo (history of work) as much as the photo itself. By that I mean that the value of the work of the artist, his history/research/sensibility count as much for the photo than just some lucky snapshot out of hundreds or thousand of photos of someone on instagram. 

I disagree, neither music, fashion nor painting can be created as casually as an instagram photo. The tools for those disciplines are not in everyone's pocket. 16 year old girls don't create a dozen music tracks, fashion designs or paintings every day. These art forms still require money, learning, tools, effort.

However, once a true clothing 3D printer is created and people can starting printing their own clothes, fashion design will crash the same way photography did. 

[mtheory]

I didn't call Leica primitive, just not superior. I respect his style, but an equal result could be achieved shooting high-fps & high-megapixel and picking/cropping the perfect shot later. 

[Axel]

I didn't call Leica primitive, just not superior. I respect his style, but an equal result could be achieved shooting high-fps & high-megapixel and picking/cropping the perfect shot later. 

​Technically, maybe. But as I see it, picking one moment out of eternity and make it eternal is the heart of photography. The MO you decribe would be the death of photography. 

I have similar reservations if people rave about the chance to scale the perfect crop out of a 4k video. It's the frames' borders that count, and if one has no idea where they should be right when he confronts his motif, he has lost the point completely. I am hopelessly nostalgic ...

[Axel]

Photography today is as special or unique as brushing your teeth. It stopped being a true craft or challenge, it has become ubiquitous, casual...therefore invisible. Look at instagram...I mean...it's just full of insanely great imagery being shot almost effortlessly in real time, and the more you look at it, the more you see that everything has been done now...it's all a copy of a copy of a copy...endless repetition. Essentially, when a discipline has nowhere else to go, when the boundaries have been explored, when it exhausts itself, this is when it dies.

​

I saw that just now. The fact that every idiot can make a technically perfect photo doesn't mean anything. Our present is contaminated with those. A good photo reveals something that didn't exist in the conscience of the viewer, it is as well a document (as opposed to stylish pose) as it is an individual expression (as opposed to endless repetition). It has to do with finding out something about the world and about yourself. This is not going to die. 

And speaking of perfect glossy photos with the aid of automatic cameras or Photoshop, how about a time journey back to 1908? We may be better 'equipped' 106 years later. Did we improve photography? Are we exhausted? By too much high quality? Or by too much stupidity? 

[captou]

I don't think every idiot is making technically perfect photos. Look again at those smartphone photos people are making. I see people taking photos with their iPad/smartphone while walking around - they don't even stop to take the picture. The results are okay but not great. But it doesn't matter because they're snapshots and no one involved seems to mind. So yes, everyone can take okay photos and put some quick fix filter on it and a lot of people are doing that. But taking great photos still takes skill. There might be an app one day that replaces that too who knows.

For now, it seems to me, it's the enthusiasts that read up on photography/camera stuff that people with photography businesses are worried about. Because they're taking away their gigs for little or no money. And that's because more or less everyone can afford a nice-ish camera now. And with digital you can take 100s of shots - so it's much more forgiving if you make mistakes.

[Axel]

This lamenting about business ruined by dilettants isn't new. Things change and it's harder for established photographers to make their profit. As it had always been. Amateurs don't make good photos even though they can take 1300 for a wedding. It's a fundamental difference if you cover every angle ten times in order to later choose the, er, 'best' - or if you get into the mood, compose the image in your mind, wait for the magic fraction of a second and push the button (the only excuse for SLR cameras today and against the slightest delay of LCDs),

I don't consider myself a good photographer. Or videographer. But I do understand this difference. You don't aim your camera at your motif, pull the trigger, shoot a heap of pictures in machine gun style and capture the essence of it. It's much like a fisherman who drains the whole lake and afterwards digs out the fish.

[Damphousse]

​

The fact that every idiot can make a technically perfect photo doesn't mean anything.

​I've never met an idiot that can take a technically perfect photo.  Even with all the automation on a DSLR with an L lens attached you still have to use judgement to get a technically perfect shot.  The camera can't tell you what the ideal aperture, shutter speed, or point of focus should be.

When I teach my friends about photography they are blown away.  Once they discover fast lenses, raw, tripods, varying shutter speeds etc they really start to explore and enjoy photography.  And then it becomes a constant journey to become better.

Photography today is as special or unique as brushing your teeth. It stopped being a true craft or challenge, it has become ubiquitous, casual...therefore invisible. Look at instagram...

​I suppose if Instagram is your benchmark for great photography I can see why you feel the way you do.  If instead you look at Ansel Adams PRINTS (not tiny pictures on cell phones) you may have a different take.

 

It's amazing because when I started making prints after I got my first DLSR I didn't understand all the weird stuff I was seeing in prints such as posterization.  Coming from film I never saw crap like that or garishly blown highlights.  Nor was I familiar with digital noise.  After using my first DSLR I then went out and bought my first medium format FILM camera.  The camera I use most for photography is my smartphone... but I would never call it or instagram the pinnacle of photography.  The smartphone is awesome because it is always with you and it doesn't require to buy film.  But if money was no object and I had all the time in the world I would shoot film.

[Brian Luce]

Dunno about photography, but precious few people can write a good script. Almost no one can write a great script. This will not change. Ever. 

 

[Axel]

Dunno about photography, but precious few people can write a good script. Almost no one can write a great script. This will not change. Ever. 

 

​... and it never was different. Only fashions change. The Zeitgeist brings forth different appearances, professions become extinct. The need to find images for our fears and hopes is hereditary. Like the need to produce narrations. Our lifes are narrations, stories, scripts. We tell them to each other, and only by sharing them and mutually acknowledging our biographies we uphold the fiction we call our mind.

[Nick Hughes]

Art is dead, guys. Better just put our cameras down and go home.

This conversation is always absurd to me. I can never figure out what exactly the pessimists are trying to say- that we should all quit? Is this a ploy to remove competition and make your art 'special' again?  

My motivation for creating art isn't based around how it stacks up against the countless masses surrounding me. It's about the personal experience of creating and growing and learning how to craft a better story. Yes, it's nice if there people to hear the story, but that is far beyond the point for me. 

If you're trying to make a living, well then yes, you do need think about your competition. But still, is being a cynic going to help you stand out?

[mtheory]

The reason artistic photography is dead to me is that I no longer find it challenging, that's all. The element of mystery, discovery and fun is gone. Photography has been so thoroughly explored that 99% it all ends up repeating itself. My commercial photography gigs are doing quite well though, and I'm excited to try medium format, but film is where the real fun is at for me.