It’s a New Year and a New Decade (or is 2010 the last year of THIS decade and 2011 starts a new one?). Technical Gadgets and electronics are progressing forward at a blazing speed. You can see it very clearly if you are a contemporary photographer. New camera, lens, smartphone, laptop (tablet?) is being announced or rumored every morning. It’s very exciting but on some level also a little bit nerve wrecking. It is very important for us, professional photographers to keep up with all that progress. If you stay behind – it is going to affect your business sooner or later. That’s because clients and consumers of our products are also aware of that progress. Often it doesn’t matter to them what equipment you use to create your artwork – true but then a large percentage of them LIKE to hear that you are shooting with the latest cameras, fastest lenses, viewing them on a perfectly calibrated monitor and backing up on the most reliable hard drives. Also, it simply makes you look so good when you travel with that sleek, gorgeous Mac Book Pro for slideshow presentation at an outside-the-office location (or soon the highly anticipated apple tablet?).
I like playing the predictions/speculations game when it comes to equipment and the beginning/end of a decade is definitely a good time to do that. One prediction that is definitely coming true I remember reading about in PC Magazine a few years back. When it became clear that digital photography is here to stay and first smart phones started becoming really smart I remember reading about everything slowly merging into one, small, handheld device that in the near future will replace your desktop computer, camera, video camera, personal assistant, will be your only phone, tv/radio receiver and will perform many additional tasks. Hmm… doesn’t iPhone come to mind immediately? Aren’t we almost there yet? If not then we will be soon. iPhone is already being used and loved by photographers around the globe (favorite examples at the end of this article). With a variety of photo processing apps and basic knowledge of light anyone can now create truly amazing looking photos in seconds. It used to take at least a few steps (shoot, download, process, edit, resize, upload/e-mail/print) to create an image that you can now achieve AND share with thousands of people literally in seconds. It is of course not limited just to the iPhone. I am using it as the most popular example but of course other smart phones on the market have even more powerful cameras with higher resolution.
What I am getting at is all those devices will become even better very soon. Higher resolution is coming, better lenses for the phone cameras? Yes, definitely. Even more advanced and even faster post-processing apps? Absolutely yes. Ability to connect an external monitor and turn your handheld in what used to be an expensive and huge (in physical comparison) desktop computer? I will say yes. Maybe not with the immediate next iteration of handhelds but I believe we will be able to do that in not so distant future!
As a photographer I am definitely excited about all that fast progress and amazing changes. I know we will soon be able to indulge ourselves with even more fantastic equipment and tools. I have to admit though that I am scared a little bit too… somewhere in the corner of the mind there are always questions like: “is there a future for us, wedding photographers?”, “will clients always appreciate and understand that all of the super-advanced technology is only a tool and it still takes an artistic soul and mind as well as a lot of expertise to create truly special images?”, “what is the next big thing coming that will revolutionize our industry? will we soon have to learn to take and present 3D images for our clients?”. I would love to inspire a discussion with this post and hear some comments from fellow photographers/wedding industry specialists. What are your predictions for the near/far future? Are you excited/scared/afraid of/waiting for what’s coming?
phone photography resources and blogs:
iPhoneographi.es
cell phone photography on flickr
monotation
the best camera
iPhoneography on flickr
iphoneographyNYC
camera phone photography tips
dphoto journal – phone camera photography tips