Where is photography going

It will not be long before our audiences demand more sophisticated imagery that is dynamic and responsive to change, connected to reality by more than a static two-dimensional rectangle of crude visual data isolated in space and time. The twist is that new forces will be driving the process. The clue is in what already occurred with the smartphone. We know the alternative: it will be out the door and hanging with the wrong crowd while we sit forlornly in the empty nest wondering what we did wrong.

The first step is to stop talking about the child it once was and to put away the sentimental memories of photography as we knew it for all these years. Contact us at letters time.

Stephen Wilkes. By Stephen Mayes. Related Stories. Plus, the total amount of photos now being shot everyday is historically more than ever before. In the year , ten percent of all of the photographs taken in the entire history of the camera were captured within that one year alone — an astounding figure.

Facebook has had over billion photos uploaded since its inception 10 years ago with an average of about million new photos being uploaded to Facebook each and every day. This is in part related to the ease of snapping pictures using cell phone camera technology, which some people feel is the death of photography, but the fact is the world is engaged with communicating through expressive impromptu pictures even if they sometimes lack pixel quality, technical perfection or a definitive point of interest.

In these cases, sometimes the immediacy of seeing a visual image of something in real time is more important to people than what the picture actually offers aesthetically.

Nonetheless, a great photograph will rise above all other photos no matter how many snaps there are at hand or what equipment the image was captured with. It looks like photography is never going to stop evolving and the border has certainly been expanded to where it seems there are no limits anymore as to what people will accept as a perceived 2 dimensional image of reality.

Aside from this, there are some truly identifiable trends which give us an indication of where things are headed. What is evident is that the everyday photographer these days wants a small electronic device he can quickly pull out of his pocket, is ready to start shooting at the click of a button, and is able to snap something on the go.

To this end, the future will entail digital imaging devices which are more like Smartphones than cameras. So far, Samsung has come the closest in this new genre with their recently released Android based line of NX pocket-sized point-and-shoot and larger sized mirrorless digital cameras with interchangeable lenses. Purist photographers will still try and fight against the way in which photography is now evolving. And while the new digital-age photographer used to have to argue that their digitally manipulated artwork really is photography, now the debate seems to have already nearly ended.

The analog dark room purists have been left behind and the masses have begun to embrace the new form of digital art maker, come photographer. If you look at one of the most artistic photo sharing sites at the moment, px. But nowadays this question is not posed so often anymore. And it appears there is already less concern about how much processing is too much, with the question having become more focused on if you like what the artist has done with his original photo or not.

People simply want beautiful pictures to look at, ones that appeal to the senses, and images that evoke emotions rather than to sit around and debate about whether the final product is still considered a true photograph or not. I think it is hard to entirely predict which of the current trends in play in photography will continue to be embraced in another 10 years from now, that with photographic technology being developed and changing more quickly than ever before.

I love my paper and ink, but I see the benefits of the iPad and Apple Pencil. Digital photography is going through a similar change, and Google is smart to refocus. From analog film cameras to digital cameras to iPhone cameras, it has become progressively easier to take and store photographs. His comments make sense: we have come to a point in society where we are all taking too many photos and spending very little time looking at them.

As a result, photos are less markers of memories than they are Web-browser bookmarks for our lives. And, just as with bookmarks, after a few months it becomes hard to find photos or even to navigate back to the points worth remembering.

Google made hoarding bookmarks futile. Today we think of something, and then we Google it. Photos are evolving along the same path as well. Humans have two billion smartphones , and, based on the ultra-conservative assumption that we each upload about two photos a day to various Internet platforms, that means we take about four billion photographs a day.

It's hard to imagine how many photos total are sitting on our devices. Thanks to our obsession with photography—and, in particular, the cultural rise of selfies —the problem of how to sort all these images has left the realm of human capabilities. Instead, we need to augment humans with machines, which are better at sifting through thousands of photos, analyzing them, finding commonalities, and drawing inferences around moments that matter.

Machines can start to learn our style of photography. Google Photos, a service the company has fully committed to, is built to do just that—organize and enhance maddeningly large photo libraries. The Assistant feature even edits your photos. The human just has to dump a lot of stuff in a pile; the machine takes care of the rest.