09-13-2017, 08:30 PM
I'm not disagreeing, I just like to put some other thoughts to it:
Don't think that way. Photography until then was dealing with kind of complicated stuff, paying loads of money for prints which were "never the way I saw it" - lack of technique, sure. But if not a lot people were in photography, how would Kodak have sold millions of film rolls per year? Only for the pros?
Even here: Availability of complex, yet easy to handle technique makes it so easy to try a picture until I'm happy. Selfies, food porn, party shots, weddings with thousands of pictures are pretty cheap to make and so a lot of people get into it. First taste is with a smartphone. People do print, but the send their own postcards these days, their own invitations, menus, photobooks to look at pictures offline, whatever - labs have business. Posters are so much less complicated to do, 8 × 10" prints? no problem, black and white or color. Photography has become more approachable, more affordable for people who want to express themselves and feel unfit to draw or paint.
We should not become defenders or lawyers of photo industry - it's the way it is, it has become more easy to snap a memory and tell others - but to create a picture worth looking at is still the same fight, learning, work, effort and patience. I think the joy of watching a great picture, drawn, painted or printed will remain.
Quote:Lot's of valid points. ...To reiterate, these were people who were never really into photography before.
Don't think that way. Photography until then was dealing with kind of complicated stuff, paying loads of money for prints which were "never the way I saw it" - lack of technique, sure. But if not a lot people were in photography, how would Kodak have sold millions of film rolls per year? Only for the pros?
Quote:Now, for most people who were just p&s users and millennials, the cell phone cameras are plenty. You get instant gratification, you can share immediately, you don't need a home computer (something else which is going away), and they don't print their photos (not much ruckus on photo printers anymore either). So why not? I was just on vacation in CDMX and all my GF used was her smartphone. In fact, I rarely saw an SLR or Mirrorless, even at very touristy sites like Teotihuacan Pyramids.
Even here: Availability of complex, yet easy to handle technique makes it so easy to try a picture until I'm happy. Selfies, food porn, party shots, weddings with thousands of pictures are pretty cheap to make and so a lot of people get into it. First taste is with a smartphone. People do print, but the send their own postcards these days, their own invitations, menus, photobooks to look at pictures offline, whatever - labs have business. Posters are so much less complicated to do, 8 × 10" prints? no problem, black and white or color. Photography has become more approachable, more affordable for people who want to express themselves and feel unfit to draw or paint.
We should not become defenders or lawyers of photo industry - it's the way it is, it has become more easy to snap a memory and tell others - but to create a picture worth looking at is still the same fight, learning, work, effort and patience. I think the joy of watching a great picture, drawn, painted or printed will remain.