demise of still photography

[jtk]

<p><strong>.</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>In 5 years, who will do, much less limit themselves to, "still photography?"</strong><br /><br /><strong></strong><br />Consider the video capability of various FF, APS, 4/3 , and virtually all cellular devices: infinitely more folks already make video than will have even seen a good print. Kodachrome will be long dead as will likely be E6.</p>

<p>Labs only accidentally do what a demanding person wants ... they cost both time and money and worse, they dumb-down photographic standards.</p>

<p>For people who photograph sunsets and mountain vistas, or enjoy nostalgic visits to yesteryear's lives, won't brilliant, increasingly "affordable" flat screen 50" TV be preferred to prints ?</p>

<p>Won't galleries and museums transition more to video, taking wall-space from prints?</p>

<p>Will the wanna-be <strong>Ansel Adams/Galen Rowell</strong>, globe-trotting retiree, or travel photographer bother with still-only cameras? Will ad agencies pay for stills or will they simply extract them from ff/aps video?</p>

<p>Gigapan: How much architectural or scenic photography will be shot large format, given the loss of E6 labs and the commercial preference for digital? Gigapan files are too huge to be appreciated in print, short of mural-size ...they're best seen on monitors.</p>

<p>As a photographer I'm a print maker: Looking forward, I don't have the time to invest myself in video, but I've seen wonders in the work of others.</p>

<p>Clandestine digital audio recording of live jazz, modern classical, and spoken performances are a new joy for me. The recording quality of my Leica-sized Olympus LS-10 easily beats that in my favorite commercial jazz CDs (mostly tape-recorded in the 40s-50s). Audio recording of ambient sound, conversati ons, and ru minations can be enlightening...perhaps the equivalent of "street photography."</p>

<p>Think what <strong>W. Eugene Smith</strong>, the convergence pioneer, would have done with our current ff video and digital audio ... <a href="http://www.jazzloftproject.org/">http://www.jazzloftproject.org/</a><br /><strong></strong></p>

[starvy]

<p>Oh dear! Your pessimism is astounding! Have a little faith, in the musical notes of Bill Frissell!<br>

The simple fact is that moving image takes up a lot more of our ability to concentrate. The still image is easier to look at as it provides more of a talking point. Point and shoot cameras had video ability for nearly a decade now. I still see millions of pictures in social networking sites and very few videos. So still photography is going to survive long after our demise.<br>

Big TV screens are hideous and many still see their pictures on computers. The reason we are printing less is because of the computer being so user-friendly, not for the big TV screen replacing the computer monitor. The big screen does play a major part in playing those horrid video files though.<br>

As for audio quality of recent jazz performances and comparing it to historic performances, the issue is surely not that bad! The Downbeat award gig with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell is not the best recording in terms of sound quality but the likes of these are not playing these days to captured on the Olympus. I am thinking of the song 'A Night in Tunisia'. For all his mastery, Wynton Marsalis would never be able to recreate that magic of that night in anything he does.<br>

What you get in clarity you miss out on musicality and atmosphere. I still love CDs and the uncompressed sound of it through my fifteen year old Naim audiophile system. I have not come across anything on youtube that gave me better quality than most of the recordings I have in my jazz collection, although it must be added that my collection is entirely consisting of 50's and 60's jazz. The Rudy van the Gelder (spelling!) are wonderful and remastering had worked wonders on many a recording from years ago.</p>

[jtk]

<p><strong>Starvy G, I don't disagree with any of your aesthetics</strong>, save for the "hideous" appraisal of TV big screens. I've seen beautiful work, recently incredibly subtle and mesmerizing ice and weather in Antarctica.</p>

<p>If you're familiar with dye transfer prints you know that few came close to better-quality Ektacolor, which rarely approached today's better inkjet...time marches on.</p>

<p>Neither of us mentioned video projections or TV/computer convergence. I'm sure you're right about computer-monitor vs TV, but both metaphors are already starting to be replaced by one dual-purpose device.</p>

<p>I did recently record Bill Frissell, fyi. I enjoy his work, have heard him live several times, but Rahim Al Haj is more musical :-) <a href="http://alibi.com/index.php?story=31203&scn=music&submit_user_comment=y">http://alibi.com/index.php?story=31203&scn=music&submit_user_comment=y</a></p>

<p>And I agree about the success of some remastering.</p>

<p>Perhaps your comment about Wynton Marsalis vs Charlie Parker implies that today's stills are inherently less valuable than yesterday's? That may be true for most of us, as we treasure family images and most-praise famous photographers of earlier eras.</p>

<p> </p>

[jtk]

<p>....in interest of posterity I should have said "Wynton Marsalis vs Dizzy Gillespie."</p>

<p>Did you know that Louis Armstrong was Django Reinhardt's first big jazz inspiration? He was converted in a gypsy caravan...I have no idea where he got the electricity. There's more fine video of Django (youtube) than there are stills.</p>

[john_a5]

<p>I certainly think there are things that will come along from time to time that augment what we see in galleries and museums, but I don't see still photography dying off. Commercially, there certainly will be a point where the advancement of video quality will allow a magazine or ad agency to lift that exact moment they want or need from their vantage point but there will still be those that understand what the photographer brings to the table--if those places survive! But at the same time, the need for content on the web may force most commercial photographers to do their work in high quality video form to compete with videographers who can deliver both usable stills and video in their work product.</p>

<p>On the other hand, video is a different thing than photography and anyone who has tried both knows that. They cannot do everything the same way. I have had to shoot stills on sets for TV commercials and the attention to detail needed to create a still is not the same as for the fleeting video/movie frame--stills can be, and in the arts should be, studied not glanced at for the split second--and that is the fundamental difference and why I believe still photography, like painting and printmaking, will remain a viable artistic form.</p>

[William Kahn]

<p>I don't think still photography will die with the advent of DSLR video any more that painting died with the advent of photography, in spite of all the dire 19th and 21st century predictions. Oh, and remember the Y2K computer meltdown predictions? That didn't happen, either. All the guys in robes and long beards on street corners with "The End Is Near" signs are now on the internet...</p>

[steve_swinehart]

<p>Bringing this one up again? You really have a need to do this at least once a year don't you? There are aesthetics associated with a fine print that cannot be replicated with a video presentation. That's why the print will not go away. Video presentation is a totally different aesthetic in use of the medium, look, and implementation.</p>

<p>Ultimately, if the image is presented for permanent display (especially in someone's home) the display medium itself is part of the aesthetic statement and video presentation is not ubiquitously applicable. I have been working on a piece that could only be done with video presentation and could not be done any other way. I can think of work that could only be done with a video presentation, and likewise pieces that are aesthetically realized only through a print - one is not a substitute for the other - and never will be.</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>There is no reason that video may replace still photography. I suspect that each medium is evolving independely of the other.</p>

[scott_stadler]

<p>Super 8 home movies didn't replace vacation pictures. My dad shot both, as it will be with video and still images. Now just as then, everyone runs when you want to show your vacation video/movies. The more things change, the more they stay the same. :)</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Even if video becomes good enough quality, there is still room a plenty for real still work (for example, why would you choose video for studio work?).<br>

I tried shooting video seriously once (well, was asked too), and found it horrible. All the time, I was ready to squeeze a shutter because the moment was right. And all the time, the stupid camera went on recording... It's a completely different thing and for me, video does not work.</p>

<p>I understand the commercial underpinnings of the current convergence, but I do not see it stick all the way through. Frankly, a DSLR does not seem to have right ergonomics. It remains a still camera with something glued on. Likewise, the RED system is capable of high resolution photos, but it remains a video camera with something glued on. I do not see this 'usability' question solved very soon.</p>

[ed_lemko]

<p>I keep thinking of the end use. Still vs. Motion. </p>

<p>The proliferation of video, and ubiquity. Ubiquity. Video everywhere.</p>

<p>Video billboards in motion while you drive. Huge, wafer thin motion murals on sides of city building, where Michael Jackson dunks and jumps on a 3 story canvas. Airport ads as you go to your terminal are also moving: someone is pouring coffee, the next one has kids jumping on a trampoline, someone using a kodak camera to capture it all.</p>

<p>Frankly, drivers will get into accidents, and the people who say we already have information overload will have system shutdown. Will the airport billboards have sound? If so, will it be the military-grade directional sound so that when you walk outside of the billboard or ad's vicinity, the next ad's sound will take over? Or what's the point without sound?</p>

<p>I often walk past a bride/groom framed art, and smile at the moment of happiness. That's all you need as you grab your hat and coat, or phone and keys to fill your memory with a full happiness of the day, from that one glance at a fine pose or captured moment. I don't have time to watch it move. </p>

<p>Extrapolate that to all the other examples. What's your conclusion about the value of still?</p>

<p> </p>

[jtk]

<p><strong>I guess it's amusing to see so much strong defense of this particular moment in technology. Me, I'd prefer to wonder about signs of the future (which surround us), or reminisce about history :-)</strong></p>

<p>Wouter: <em>"Frankly, a DSLR does not seem to have right ergonomics."</em> That's what some say. But <strong>5DII has famously been right for recent network TV video</strong>. <em> "Seem"</em> may be one thing, reality another.</p>

<p>Steve S: <em>"Bringing this one up again? You really have a need to do this at least once a year don't you?"</em> <strong>Yes, I have to. </strong> I think I've speculated twice about RED: was right about it's then-future (threatened now by Sony and other APS competition)...RED has been used extensively for big motion picture work right here in New Mexico, where we have no good movie labs. I've also commented on the demise of E6 labs: two of our state's 2 and arguable 1/2 have vanished in the past two years, not to mention a half dozen in San Francisco.</p>

<p>William K: <em>"I don't think still photography will die with the advent of DSLR video any more that painting died with the advent of photography, in spite of all the dire 19th and 21st century predictions." </em> Odd analogy IMO: The advent of photography was irrelevant to the tactile arts (painting is substantially tactile...most of it long ago retired from photography's rendition space)...<strong>what died in the late 20th was book-reading and physical fitness, thanks to TV. </strong><br>

<strong> </strong><br>

John A: <em>"They cannot do everything the same way." </em> Right. And DSLR seems inclined not to do what <strong>Deardorff</strong> et al did (methodical, slow work). fwiw <strong>despite my best wishes to Sekei Mamiya's ghost</strong> I doubt MF digital has a future, given FF</p>

<p>Michael L :<em> "I suspect that each medium is evolving independely </em>of the other." OK, I'll bite: <strong>WHY</strong> do you "suspect" that? <strong>Nikon may be killing the SLR form-factor for prosumers</strong>. Sony's latest APS videocam uses lenses from it's maybe-doomed DSLRs. Is that the evolution you had in mind?</p>

<p>Scott S: <em>"Super 8 home movies didn't replace vacation pictures. My dad shot both..." </em>The Super 8 your dad shot took business from photo printers. He bought a Super 8 camera, rather than a better film camera.<strong> DSLR video capability kills value in last year's non-video DSLRs.</strong></p>

 

[jtk]

<p><strong>Ed Lemko, I like your thinking </strong>because it correlates positively and negatively with some of my own:</p>

<p><em>" I don't have time to watch it move. " </em><br>

Me, I try to take time for things that matter (to me). I'd skip the wedding photos that attract you. Like you I find those video billboards menacing...unlike you, I think menaces call for attention. I guess I'm "old school," sorta'.</p>

<p><em>"Extrapolate that to all the other examples. What's your conclusion about the value of still?"</em><br>

Ed, I print everything that I find valuable. I'm a printing photographer. If it didn't matter to me and I needed a print I might use a lab, but I'd be embarassed. <strong> </strong></p>

[Izone Photography]

<p>The Active causes a different reaction than the Static image.<br>

Philosophically there are many ambiguities in Active imaging (i.e. Zeno's paradox) as well as reality issues in the Static image...and these are different issues. These differences are at the heart of our brain's characteristics and the way we perceive/organize the reality we live in. I see special effects in cinematography that work well while similar special effects in still imaging failing.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p> Will cinema replace the novel? Does photography replace painted art? Will Internet completely replace printed media?</p>

<p>I believe the simplest answer to all these is no. There is no credible reason I believe to think that video will replace the still image. Each has its own character and assets. Each will survive, including the beautiful handmade print from photography. </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>

 

 

<p ><strong> "I see special effects in cinematography that work well while similar special effects in still imaging failing." </strong>(Robert)</p>

<p > </p>

<p >That may be true for some observers. I often find the active image too complete, too banal and predictable at times. The more limited static image has more suggestiveness for my brain, and in that sense does not fail me like some video material does. I don't want everything to be spelled out for me. Uninteresting.</p>

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[Spearhead]

<p>I'm wondering if the reason all the bad analogies are being given is that it's easier to give a bad analogy than to justify the points being attempted.<br>

<br />The process started years ago. Mass market documentary photography pretty much ended with television. In fact, most documentary photography for consumption beyond a small band of photographers ended. Portraits used to be painted, how many painters do you see with a portrait shop on Main Street or at the mall? Cinema didn't replace the novel, but the internet did for the new generation. And the internet and electronic reading devices have come pretty close to killing print, it's almost over. The internet generation spends more time on Chat Roulette than on photo sites. And rarely reads print.</p>

<p>I suspect that photo frames will eventually be video frames and we will see what happens then...</p>

<p>And in the commercial arena, it's really changed. My business (sports photography) has pretty much tanked. I used to sell prints, then it was web images, but now they show video on their web sites. When I started shooting fights, there were usually a couple of photographers and maybe an ESPN crew. Now, there's a half dozen photographers and at least as many organizations with video unless Showtime or HBO is covering, in which case they control who gets to use video. </p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>I don't want everything to be spelled out for me. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is really the problem here. It doesn't matter what <em>you</em> want or don't want. It matters what <em>all of them</em> want or don't want.</p>

 

[iliafarniev]

<p>Be it as it may with the future, but one thing about stills - they are not mooving. Wich offers unique viewing opportunity, calm, secure, aesthetic experience of time.</p>

<p>Mooving images is what we see all the time and for most part they are banal, more or less dangerous, seldom aesthetic and require quick analysis and reaction. Which means most of the people, western city dwellers anyway, are sick and tired of all this.</p>

<p>Besides, you can't decorate rooms with movies, painted pictures are expencive, so there are prints.</p>

<p>In dynamic intertanment stills can't beat movies. In static situations they do easy.</p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>Which means most of the people, western city dwellers anyway, are sick and tired of all this.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />Got any data on this? Or is this just what you think?</p>

 

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[aplumpton]

<p>I wonder why it is difficult to give a personal opinion without it being hauled over the coals by our moderator. I would much rather have the ideas of the people responding to John's post than what some business magazine predicts will happen to the printed medium versus Internet or ipad book reading. Most of the population will be influenced by business decisions (advertisers that have dumbed down TV, or electronics companies that want you to use the fumbly notebook readers instead of the considerable pleasure of the printed page). Change for change's sake. There will always be those who prefer making up their own minds. Most western countries began with just those persons. Substance counts for more than medium.</p>

<p>"Cinema didn't replace the novel, but the internet did for the new generation." I hope you can give some more of your statistics. My grandchildren and their friends oscillate between Internet (Facebook, a telephone replacement) and a multitude of books, on a daily basis. And they ain't no nerds.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>It's one thing to have an opinion about something, but it has to an interpretation based on facts. It's another to make a statement that reads as fact without data. The fact that I'm a moderator has nothing to do with what I post here as long as it's within the guidelines.</p>

<p>It's not about business magazine predictions either. That's an odd extrapolation from what I stated. The facts are simple, they've been posted here before. Print is dying. That's not an opinion. Stating anything contradictory to that is simply stating a falsehood, since it's demonstrably false.</p>

[jtk]

<p>I think assertions that video (even movies) inherently "spell everything out" and are inherently "banal" directly indicate careless viewing, lack of curiosity. Here's a random recent example that would suffer in print IMO, but has perhaps-poetic implications for global culture today: <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319769/">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319769/</a></p>

<p>As well, those of us with real interest in photography might remember that the "banal" has long seemed worth exploration by literally most of our most-honored non-motel-wall "art" photographers. There can be more to photography than decor. If you lived in the towns Robert Frank and Duane Michaels photographed, your personal banality would be invisible to you, but not to them. Edward Weston saw something in banality, too.</p>

<p> </p>

[iliafarniev]

<p>What would you consider as "data" in this case?</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>John and Jeff,</p>

<p>I do not disagree with a lot of what you say, but titles like <strong>demise of still photography</strong> remind one of the statements of Shaw (I think) who stated that the newspaper reports of his death were somewhat exaggerated. Many art media exist in parallel, often cross fertilising with each other and providing more choice to the viewer or consumer. That is great. I would have little interest in prophesising that video is in demise, whether that would be true or not. Still photography will no doubt outlive you, me, our grandchildren and likely their grandchildren. You don't need a thousand diffrent ways to visually express yourself. Man has been doing it on two dimensional substrates for at least 25,000 years, and is still doing it. </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>"Here's a random recent example that would suffer in print IMO, but has perhaps-poetic implications for global culture today"</p>

<p>Haven't seen it John, although the Spanish are among my favourite filmmakers and that one will no doubt show up soon at one of our local repertory cinemas. Without knowing the story in detail of the film, O'Neill's book "A long Day's Journey into Night" reminds me of a book equivalent, that had its own poetic implications in its time (and possibly not very different from the film you cite).</p>