Two recent blog posts by photographic bloggers that I follow, Kirk Tuck here: http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.it/2013/10/the-graying-of-traditional-photography.html and David Taylor-Hughes here: http://soundimageplus.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/unapologetically-old-school-continuing.html discuss the notion that generational change is changing photography (or at least the photography market).
I don't agree about the generation gap but then it's not black and white, 100% one cause or the other.
This discourse is much more complicated than any one of us will be able to explicate. It's complicated because several orthogonal issues are involved. One of those is our attitudes towards technology which is coupled with our attitudes towards change. Another issue is the nature of market driven change in technology dominated industries, of which photography is firmly planted. Finally there is the issue of ageism or age discrimination, is it the same as saying the old guard doesn't "get it"? I have a 30+ years of professional experience in IT and 30+ years of amateur experience in photography, which means I am a member of the cohort who is clinging on to the past in the face of tumultuous change.
Change and lack of it. A contradiction. Change is the one constant in IT, yet old stuff that works hangs around seemingly forever. The change comes with newly installed systems. I once did a survey of web servers on our intra-network and discovered that the release level of the software was much pretty much stuck at the level it was when installed, no matter how long the server had been running. Some people are reluctant to change expertise while others are eager to move on to something new. In my experience, neither one is associated with age except that it's widely assumed that the older you are the less you know about new stuff. That assumption is ageism. I think a lot of it has do with the individual, did you have to struggle to acquire expertise or understanding? If so, you are more likely to resist change. Do you like to be challenged or prefer a relaxed stability? This leads us to another issue:
Do you revel in the means and methods of photography? This is not orthogonal to having what I will call the artistic eye, but you can do one without the other, or both. Back in the film/chemistry days both Edward Weston and Ansel Adams did darkroom work with chemicals. But there was a vast gap between the 'geekiness' between the two. Adams was a technical nerd while Weston was not. Both had great artistic vision.
I spent of lot time 'calibrating' my photography workflow from exposure to printing, based on Adam's writings, it was very technical and right up my alley, but it did little to nothing to make me a better photographer. Then, as today, my best shots are opportunistic that just happen to work out. My planning for shots is rather sterile, technically good (or not :) but not artistic.
The old farts are missing the market, they don't get it. Established technology companies can loose their way not because they are run by a bunch of 50 yr old + executives. It's far too easy to say that the 50 year old cohort is stuck in the past. What they are really stuck in is capitalism. To be a successful large company means you meet your sales figures every quarter and to do that you ask your existing clients what they want from you. And they pretty much tell you that they want more of the same, incrementally improved and made cheaper. That great disruptive invention in the lab your team came up with, well, the sales projections show that it will not make a measurable impact on your sales goals, you have to let it slide for now. Maybe next year your clients will ask for it. The problem is, that by the time your clients ask for it, it's being provided by a start-up company whose sales are great for their size but inconsequential for yours until they start selling into your client base.
Not all large companies and senior executives behave this way, Steve Job's started his turn-around of Apple when he was 42 and kept it up until he was 55. Notably, what makes Applelarge today is not what the company did for most of it's life, i.e. make PC's.
To all the claims that photography workflow will be dominated by ease of transfer to social media, all I can say is that cell phones do the entire workflow quite well, or good enough for the majority, right now. That disruptive train has left the station and won't be coming back in until the next disruption. So where does that leave Nikon, Canon and Sony, not to leave out Fujifilm, Pentax, Panasonic, Olympus, Sigma and Ricoh? I am not sure. I don't think providing ease of publishing to social media will turn things around, it won't hurt but it won't replace the cell phone camera. They all are iterating the past, some with more panache than others. Are any of them trying to disrupt the market? Still not clear. Is micro four-thirds or Nikon/Sony CX or Pentax Q disruptive? Doesn't seem that way, it could be argued that all those products are just incremental improvements or variations on the same configuration of technologies. Could Lytro be disruptive? Could be, time will tell, but I doubt it because of how photographs are used.
Here is what I think drives photography disruption: How are the photographs used?
Professionally via prints or electronic distribution, i.e. fine art, advertising, event recording.
Personally via prints or electronic distribution, i.e 4x6 mass market printing and the internet. (maybe photo frames?)
I think cell phones handle most of the personal use. For those situations where they don't I see all kinds of people form all kinds of ages using DSLR's and mirrorless. I see the existing cameras handling the professional needs as well. Those needs will have change in a substantial way to drive disruption.
Disruption in the existing use means simpler and cheaper, it's hard for me to imagine anything else coming along other that what we already have or have seen. But then that's the nature of the future, largely unknowable.
Disruption could also be in a new use for photography. I can't tell you what that might be, once again, it's large unknowable until it's revealed. Maybe someone has seen a small niche that can't be served by the existing technology and a new kind of product is serving that market?
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