Photokina 2008, continued
24/09/08 19:34 Filed in: Personal
The death of photography has been prematurely announced! Or not?
Walking over the vast area of Photokina in Cologne, a few observations cannot be evaded. The most important observation is the massive shift away from the bare essentials of photographic expertise to blind picture shooting. In the not so distant past, one needed a modicum of knowledge and experience to take a satisfactory picture. Current cameras can only be activated when the subject is smiling, framed correctly and enlarged to scale. The pattern recognition, exposure algorithms (too less light, boost ISO speed or activate shake reduction), background beautifiers, automatic contrast reduction programs and a host of other features help the camera user to take good pictures without even knowing what the camera is doing and without the slightest inclination to override the automatic camera settings. The old idea of camera software designers, to incorporate all necessary photographic knowledge and lore into the programs, has become reality. Shooting from the hip, at all moments in time without thinking about any technicalities is now common practice. And to be honest, people love it to be dismissed form photography classes. Every modern camera, including high tech ones offer video capture features, blurring the distinction between film and photography.
For the first time in Photokina history, a full hall has been devoted to the creation of photo books. The growth of photo books as a market is spectacular.
A second hall has been occupied by flash equipment manufacturers, again indicating an interest in using equipment to make pictures under all kinds of condition.
Camera users are totally focused on making pictures and producing books in print and on the internet. This in itself is to be applauded: it is better to make pictures than to discuss camera technicalities as is the case on most internet forums.
The possibly bad point is that nobody seems to know about the proper use of the aperture choice for selective sharpness or the conscious under exposure to create a certain mood.
The industry is quite happy: every new generation of cameras offers more features that allow users a larger share of photographic ignorance and the ease of taking acceptable pictures is a nice incentive to take more and more pictures.
But the knowledge of the photographic basics is totally lost on the current generation of users. Pictures are assumed to be automatically correct and the industry is claiming that you do not need to know a thing about photography to get good pictures.
The other trend is miniaturization. Pentax shows a new extremely compact dslr, completely in plastic and Panasonic has the Micro Four Thirds cameras, stressing the compact size and the expandability of the camera.
Picture taking is now on the same level as e-mailing, mobile phones and mp3 players: part of the daily actions and to be taken for granted.
The introduction of new high end dslr cameras has been very sparse (Olympus has a camera between the 520 and 3 series, Canon has the 5D), but the overwhelming majority of cameras is compact, cheap and smart.
Very smart to be honest and the results are impressive. Why bother with obsolete knowledge you no longer have a need for.
Picture taking has been severed from photography. This is not a bad trend, just a fact of life. Cars are getting smarter too and ld driver expertise is no longer required. Why should you want to know when you can detect the break away point of a car in a corner when the micro chips can do this for you much more effective.