Is photography dying?

Yes. Outsourcing promised low inflation and higher wages for the retail sector at the expense of minimum wage manufacturing jobs no one wanted like garment factories. Outsourcing was supposed to boost the important retail economy creating higher paying retail jobs, increase commercial real estate value with malls, boost local tax income, union wages in logistics wages and multitudes of supply chain jobs. But instead with the internet and mobile phones we see it benefits logistics and e-tail. But to be fair if the internet and tech didn’t happen probably outsourcing would have fulfilled much of what was promised?
 
Rayt said:
But to be fair if the internet and tech didn’t happen probably outsourcing would have fulfilled much of what was promised?
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I see the collapse of the high street and physical retailer in much the same way as I see photography, to be honest.

With consumer goods generally getting more and more disposable - and, more importantly, more and more generic and interchangeable - in search of higher profits and more rapid consumption, what reason does anyone have to go to a physical store? Who needs input from specialist retailers when there's less and less distinction between (for example) televisions... and they're all made in the same factory and destined to be replaced within two years anyway? Who needs to go and try on clothing when that shirt will only fall apart in six months?

The greed of companies led to a mindset that was more easily sated by the internet and e-commerce than it was by the physical retailer. They dug their own grave.

Incidentally, the way out of this (if you're of the opinion that the Old Way is best), is to go back to the specialist retailer; The Guardian wrote a great article in 2019 about hyper-specialist shops in Berlin - the sort of place that isn't easily replaced by Amazon and the like, and not only because of the breadth of products available, but for the expert advice available on-site. These are the places that become Destinations for people with niche pursuits - people who then, having made a journey to visit said place, are more likely to stay and spend money in cafes and other shops in the district.

But instead - at least here in the UK - councils continue to search for generic clothing chains to fill empty commercial property in the high street, leading to town centres being desolate ghost towns. Who's going to travel to somewhere for product they can have delivered to their door?

I've lived in the same town in south-east England since 2013. It is nigh-impossible to find useful, practical items here for any purpose. There are two stores selling "tools", and both have an absolutely tiny selection of low-quality products that break or disintegrate within a month. I couldn't even find a single O-ring of any size last time I looked.

But cheap jeans made of the flimsiest denim (that never seem to fit properly)? Yeah, we've got that covered.
 
Look at Patti Smith I by Franz Gertsch (google that if you haven´t seen it yet). I had the pleasure to see that painting at a show, and at first sight I didn´t know if it was a photograph or a painting.
What that has to do with the topic? The keyword is "photorealism", pictures looking like photographs, but they aren´t. Easy to define, isn´t it? When the effect of LIGHT, on film or a sensor, produces the picture, it is a photo. The rest is something else.
 
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justins7 said:

raydm6​

The whole "Jobs lost, jobs gained" argument has been proven to be false after decades now of hearing this. It's an argument made by capitalism to legitimize itself and also make people feel like they're not luddites.

I have worked in commercial print and digital design for 30 years and have seen all of these jobs vaporize — and never once saw the "jobs gained". All of those printers or film-strippers or type-setters either became waiters or faded from the world completely. The only jobs gained are at the very top (Adobe, Google, etc.) or on the bottom. Ironically the only jobs that were ever stable are blue-collar, like plumbers, welders and electricians.

This gets proven year after year. Just saying "unfortunately, this is how it is" is the reason we just keep marching off the edge of a cliff. It's contributed to our current state of populism/authoritarianism, as well as depression, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, etc., in my view, since what made us human before — agency, creativity, DIY — has been/is being eliminated.

We are on an inexorable march towards total automation of human creation. CG is indeed already coming for Hollywood (reboots of Raiders of the Lost Ark using faked Harrison Ford, for example); it's only a matter of time before actors are fully replaced. There are fewer movie stars than ever. Porn is already becoming AI.
And music? Most new pop music is automated, or semi-automated, with Autotune, etc. There are literally no rock stars anymore. Most photographers I know are already semi- or fully-unemployed already.

This is simply becoming a world where human endeavors are becoming "irrelevant," and all of the arts — like photography, art and music — are just side hobbies. No wonder culture is in such a low place now, and many or most people just look to the past. Dystopian indeed. Glad I am not a young person.
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Very true, very disturning and sad..
Coldkennels said:
This whole thing is so damned depressing - but ultimately we should have seen it coming....
....

As for the job issue... that's even more depressing. Economists, philosophers and theorists of the late 1800s and early 1900s saw mechanisation and automation as a net good for humanity; they predicted that the increase of productivity would mean we'd be able to work fewer hours and have a higher quality of life. Instead, the profits that should have been used in this way were siphoned off to the business owners and CEOs, and the poor people were left scrambling for lower-quality jobs with stagnating pay. And instead of fully automating the most mundane of jobs as expected/predicted, the capitalist/ruling class are automating the artistic pursuits that bring us joy, keeping everyone else cleaning toilets and stacking shelves.

We were robbed. And I don't know why more people aren't angry about that.
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So true, I fully agree.

I find myself with an internal resistance to hit the "like" button !
 
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As automation marches on, I have learned over the years to respect art-making/photography endeavors even more. "Hobbies" (a terribly trivializing word) are almost all we have left, and are therefore even MORE important.

It's one of the reasons I've given in to my GAS impulses, got back into film photography and embraced the absurdity of using vintage equipment. If it's all useless and commercially dead anyway, then why not enjoy it? Surely this is one of the reasons film equipment has gotten expensive again, since others feel the same way, especially younger people who are facing this for their whole lives now.
 
A few thoughts...

They say the next election in the UK will be fought on 'cultural' issues. Quite what that means I do not know but doubt it will be what I think it means.

(By the way Coldkennels, Lidl do an excellent line in O rings which doesn't really help either side!)

The term 'hobby' has come to be derogatory but should be seen as complementary being a chance for a little personal individualism.

Which comes to the point I am trying to make. We apparently live in an age of 'mass communication'. My worry is that social media has a habit of destroying individualism. Herd mentality rules.

If asked, I wonder what a 'young person' might answer if asked what they feel positive about for the future. AI???

Oh, and 'photography' or 'picture making' will evolve as it always has, I leave others to construe a link between marks made on a sooty and shadowy cave wall and some black and white images produced using a Leica hewn from a lump of metal and glass. Media and end result may be different but the intention of the creator might have been similar.

Maybe
 
Harry the K said:
…"photorealism", pictures looking like photographs, but they aren´t. …
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Also see Richard Estes - his photorealist paintings in the early 1970’s just amazed me when I first saw them.

But I have to wonder: if photography had never been invented, would photorealism ever have come into existence? Would there arise a group of avant-garde painters who would ultimately develop this style?

Actually, I think so - it would happen eventually. But the existence of photographs helped make it happen sooner.
 
Even though I earn a living as photographer, I am less concerned about AI taking my paycheck and more concerned about AI taking away jobs en masse and then the prospect of solutions like Universal Basic Income leaving people wondering what their actual purpose in life is, regardless of income?

Everyone I have ever met in the tech field is *so* sure that they are doing the right thing and that no matter what things like AI will benefit people much more than leave them hopeless and yet the fat cats who fund it walk away with the profits and hold more and more control.
For reasons that I don’t want to burn out and I want to leave on a good note, I let a lot of commercial clients know that this year is my last in the field. With the prospect of AI, I feel good about it and and feel even better about my decision a decade ago to pour a lot of money into my darkroom and setting the stage for a major career shift.

So this year my wife said I have to quit the commercial stuff and take the risk, to sell prints and take on commissions, but make a real effort to shift my career path.

So I have a few more thoughts on the “Death of Photography”.
In some ways, it could be looked at as one of several aspects of the death of what it means to be human. It can and will affect a lot more than just photography and my concern is how it could, in large scale, affect the human outlook on life. It will affect food, education, jobs, careers, medicine and wellness, politics, the arts, mental health and the care of our planet’s ecological balance.


AI is a tool that will be likely be far more impactful than we can currently grasp. But we…the humans who eat the food, view the ads, the art, the photos, educate our selves and chart our paths forward have a say in this. Firstly we can vote with our wallets.
If in the future I see nothing but ads that are widely known to be AI and not actual products on the person I think I am seeing in the place they appear in, well then what the heck is the point of that? Why bother if when selling a real product and or service you are not being genuine at least to a reasonable degree?


I imagine more and more people would feel the same…
 
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Pál_K said:
Also see Richard Estes - his photorealist paintings in the early 1970’s just amazed me when I first saw them.

But I have to wonder: if photography had never been invented, would photorealism ever have come into existence? Would there arise a group of avant-garde painters who would ultimately develop this style?

Actually, I think so - it would happen eventually. But the existence of photographs helped make it happen sooner.
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A good question. There were some painters before the invention of photography who tried to mirror physical reality, but I think they always added something else, for example symbolism or mood. Duerer, Caravaggio, Vermeer,...
Modern painters have more or less distanced themselves from the appearance of things.
 
Harry the K said:
A good question. There were some painters before the invention of photography who tried to mirror physical reality, but I think they always added something else, for example symbolism or mood. Duerer, Caravaggio, Vermeer,...
Modern painters have more or less distanced themselves from the appearance of things.
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Photorealist Painting Techniques and Methods — Art is Fun

Do you want to learn how to paint a photorealist painting? Or are you just curious about how they are painted? Read a Photorealist artist's explanation of photorealism techniques and methods!
www.art-is-fun.com www.art-is-fun.com

I see resent photorealist work presented on web from time to time.
 
Ko.Fe. said:

Photorealist Painting Techniques and Methods — Art is Fun

Do you want to learn how to paint a photorealist painting? Or are you just curious about how they are painted? Read a Photorealist artist's explanation of photorealism techniques and methods!
www.art-is-fun.com www.art-is-fun.com

I see resent photorealist work presented on web from time to time.
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Well, that shows just how stupid and naive I’ve been: until now, I didn‘t realize that Richard Estes and others were using photographs and a “mechanical” process to create their work. I thought that they just referred to photographs - observational only.

The magic is gone.

However, I do enjoy the opposite view very much: photographs that have Impressionist or other styles of painting. Occasionally I see it on RFF.
 
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Pál_K said:
Well, that shows just how stupid and naive I’ve been: until now, I didn‘t realize that Richard Estes and others were using photographs and a “mechanical” process to create their work. I thought that they just referred to photographs - observational only.
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It is still insanely hard to do...
 
jsrockit said:
It is still insanely hard to do...
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Agreed, it´s maybe harder to do as a "free" painting. But given the imitation technique the photorealists follow, I ask myself why they do it.
It seems there is no creativity contentwise involved, it´s all just about painting technique.
 
Pál_K said:
Well, that shows just how stupid and naive I’ve been: until now, I didn‘t realize that Richard Estes and others were using photographs and a “mechanical” process to create their work. I thought that they just referred to photographs - observational only.

The magic is gone.

However, I do enjoy the opposite view very much: photographs that have Impressionist or other styles of painting. Occasionally I see it on RFF.
Click to expand...


Artists have used cameras as an aid to doing realistic paintings and drawings since the 1400s. This was long before the invention of photography, of course. The cameras had a lens and a ground glass, with the focusing screen usually on top of the camera like in a waist-level finder, with a mirror inside to reflect the image up to the screen. Paper would be placed on top of the ground glass and the image traced. These could be quite large since the ground glass had to be the size of the final artwork, and there were large 'walk-in' versions where the image was projected onto a wall that the paper would be affixed to for making very large works of art.
 
I was aware of these old techniques of painting by using a projected image. What I did not realize is that my heroes were using a variation of it. But now I realize that is the only practical way to produce such work.

Still, I’m disappointed. In an act of apostasy, I renounce photorealism and embrace the only form of painting which is honest:

83570718-F7E1-4775-AAB2-848966F99FFA.jpeg
 
Pál_K said:
I was aware of these old techniques of painting by using a projected image. What I did not realize is that my heroes were using a variation of it. But now I realize that is the only practical way to produce such work.

Still, I’m disappointed. In an act of apostasy, I renounce photorealism and embrace the only form of painting which is honest:

View attachment 4818690
Click to expand...

When I was in art school, an art history class used that as one of the textbooks.
 
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