What is happening to photography?

As cameras get better and better an interesting thing is happening - the creative exercise of generating an amazing image is increasingly being decoupled from the physical act of holding and operating the camera.

Used to be you had to get things like white balance, framing and the aperture setting right when you were shooting. Now we have RAW files, high resolutions and HDR modes so that you can select the colours, the frame and the aperture after the fact.

Chipmakers are already starting to hit a resolution wall (who cares how many megapixels you have? How many poster sized photos do we ever print out?). As a result they will have to look for other ways to add value. I think that this will be in things like automatic geotagging - so that the camera knows exactly where it is on the planet and which way it is pointing. Another direction will be in cameras that can take photos at a very high speed. Yet another will be cameras that can shoot at different focal lengths and calculate how far objects are from them.

Once these features are combined - we will have a device that just needs to be waved around at the subject. Intelligent software will then stitch the hundreds of images together into a 'cloud' of data - a mini virtual world. Photographers will be able to zoom around inside these virtual worlds at their leisure - pulling out of the cloud a photo that has the desired framing, colour, focal length etc.

I don't think this will render the skills of photography meaningless - but it will change their emphasis. Being able to get just the right aperture or focal length will not be as important. Finding the right subjects, getting the right light, being able to compose an attractive image - these things will continue to differentiate between real photographers and the rest of us.

Photography Blog