The future of photography

[Jay DeFehr]

Anyone else thinking about the future of the medium? I don't mean speculations about the future of film production/availability, or the inevitability of the digital revolution, specifically, though those aspects are important. I'm more interested to know if anyone has ideas about the evolution of the medium as an art form. I realize this forum is not the most obvious one in which to pose the question, but that's part of my reason for doing so. I wonder if the use of a view camera directly correlates to a lack of interest in the future of the medium in favor of its past. Any forward-looking LF photogs here, and if so, how does it manifest in your photography?

[Maris Rusis]

I suspect the future of the medium of photography will be continuous with and identical to its past. What people photograph will of course be different because they will record a changed world.

Making pictures out of light sensitive materials by arranging them to absorb samples of photons from illuminated subject matter is what it is what it is. In general media do not evolve but maintain their identity indefinitely. Marble sculpture is the same today as it was for the ancient Greeks. Oil painting is essentially the same as what the Van Eyck brothers perfected in the 15th century.

The tools of a medium tend to be bound to it. A stone mason's chisel, a painter's brush, a photographer's camera need to be the way they are to do their necessary work.

On the other hand non-photographic picture-making has a long way to evolve and I think the use of clever mark-making machines, shape-making machines, printers, etc, controlled by electronic files has only just begun to flourish.

[mdm]

Its impossible to know the future till you are in it.

[Michael Alpert]

I wonder if the use of a view camera directly correlates to a lack of interest in the future of the medium in favor of its past. Any forward-looking LF photogs here, and if so, how does it manifest in your photography?

You imply a direct connection between the future of the "medium as an art form" and the specific technology being used. Today there are many many painters who still use brushes and sticky paint, which is a far older technology than photography. Poets still use pencils. "Forward-looking" is in itself a problematic term. Who defines "forward looking"? Was Van Gogh trying to be forward-looking or was he trying to be true to himself? It seems to me that the worth of any art or art-form has more to do with its truth-telling than its technology. One can be trite while using the latest technology or while using traditional technologies. I also think that one always lives in all dimensions of time, the past and present as well as the future. One lives in the present with both memory and anticipation. To be concerned about where we as a species are going is tremendously important. That concern is informed through the study of the present and the past.

[Lachlan 717]

Its impossible to know the future till you are in it.

Doesn't this statement contradict itself?

[mdm]

No, when you are in the future its the present.

[Lachlan 717]

If it's impossible to know the future, how can you know that it's impossible to know the future?

[r.e.]

Anyone else thinking about the future of the medium?

For several reasons, ranging from the human desire to want to know what happened, or remember what happened, to enforcing laws and to advancing political positions, human beings have an almost insatiable desire for objective recordings of the present. Cameras and sound recorders do that better than any other technology. The change from film and tape to ones and zeros, and the ability to store those ones and zeroes in tiny devices, makes it significantly cheaper and easier to make these recordings. The result is that visual and sound recording are exploding. The question isn't whether these media have a future, but when it will be possible to record events in 3D with sound that fully duplicates what an observer of the events would have heard from any physical position in relation to the events. This is clearly coming.

To address your question about the future of photography as an art form, the main issue is what people will do with this technology to inject subjectivity into, and manipulate - subvert, if you will - the greater objectivity, compared to drawing, of which the technology is capable.

The second question for artists is where to draw the line between still images and moving images. Yesterday, while looking at the web site of a photographer who has put together a portfolio of images from Occupy Wall Street, I came across the phrase "motion portrait". He uses it to describe a cross between a still image and moving images. It is a phrase that is new to me, but perhaps emerging.

The third question for artists is where to draw the line between images, still or moving, and sound.

The one thing that is absolutely clear, from the Arab Spring to what happened at UC Davis a few days ago, is that photography has a future, and that cheap video/sound recorders, and a camera in every cell phone, have consequences that I suspect very few people understood.

As the cliché goes, my two cents.

[Jay DeFehr]

Maris,

You seem conflicted.

In general media do not evolve..

On the other hand non-photographic picture-making has a long way to evolve...

A stone mason's chisel, a painter's brush, a photographer's camera need to be the way they are to do their necessary work.

I think the use of clever mark-making machines, shape-making machines, printers, etc, controlled by electronic files has only just begun to flourish.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[jp]

I don't see anything going away... I see video playing a bigger role in the reporting/documentary aspect of imaging. Video replacing the written news article is already starting to happen, and it's annoying me, who wants to quickly scan a web news article and continue on. It'll be a method to keep your eyes on the page (with it's advertisements) for a fixed amount of time, which you can't do with text.

I forsee a decline in image quality standards. Technical factors contributing to this would be the use of video frames as stills, flourishing acceptance of cell phone camera, and new and immature ways of viewing shared imagery.

Resulting or contributing artistic observations would be a preference for less literal imagery; from an overload of reality-centric images on facebook/flickr, etc.... I think a revival in soft/pictorialism will be a minor part of this (which think is an upside for that niche), as people look to revive proven ways to express themselves photographically. As most people's standards suffer, high end straight photography might seem simplistic (bad) or been-there-done-that by everyone with a 100 megapixel $500 dslr.

I also forsee a continued flourishing of online communities like this place and apug, et.al. for people to learn and be inspired regarding their photo interests.