Everything Has Its Arc

[This post goes with the previous two and makes three. It wraps up (for now) my musings about the state of camera sales and the camera and lens business c. Sept. '19—as ever, from the perspective not of businesses but of users.]

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As I've been saying, I'm a bit worried that in a few years we'll all be stuck with cellphones with commodity camera modules added to them so people can share pictures of their kids, take lots of selfies, and make instantly deletable pictures of the food they're about to eat. And despite that, as I said yesterday, I'm pretty sanguine about the likelihood that there will continue to be what I quaintly consider "real cameras" for the foreseeable. 

But you know what? It doesn't actually matter. Photographs used to be one-of-a-kind direct faux-positives on mirrored surfaces (the "mirror with a memory"—Daguerreotypes, a word Ted Orland amusingly claimed "cannot be spelled correctly"). When people started making negatives on glass plates from which they could make iterative identical albumen prints on paper, photography didn't die. (Actually, photographers stopped dying—making Daguerreotypes involved mercury fumes, and was in some cases fatal). Tintypes were cheapened Daguerreotypes for the lower classes and were decried in some quarters, but they didn't kill photography either. And now there's a subset community (photography > analog > alt process > tintype) of enthusiasts happily doing creative things with tintype. The Kodak in the 1890s didn't kill cameras on tripods. The SLR didn't kill the rangefinder. And so forth. What is photography, anyway? Not a Kodachrome transparency in a slide mount—not any more. Change is change.

[JPEG of] Daguerreotype of Daguerre. Photo by
Jean-Baptiste Sabatier-Blot, 1844.

When I graduated from photography school wanting to teach (my goal in life was to be a teacher) I knew I couldn't afford graduate school, so I made a list of eleven things that would serve as a "street substitute" appropriate for an autodidact. I figured if I couldn't have a Masters, I could at least work toward mastery. (One of the eleven things was "work in a museum." I remember the head of one of the Smithsonian museums, Eugene Ostroff, gazing across his desk at me saying, "people work their whole careers for a chance to work here. You can't just waltz in off the street and expect to work here." I never did tick that item off the list.) Anyway one of the items was to at least familiarize myself  with all formats. I made Minox "spy camera" pictures and pictures with toy cameras and pictures on 120 film from 645 to 6x9 and pictures with view cameras up to 8x10 (I never did ask Fred Newman if I could make one picture with his 20x24) and pictures with a "pre-digital" still-video camera and pictures with Polaroid cameras and pictures with folders and pictures with an old Leica and a new Nikonos and...well, you get the picture. The point is, one particular photographer might want something very specific in a camera, but photographers as a whole don't need any specific kind of camera to be creative with a camera.

For one thing, in order to be a photographer of your time and place it's best to be a photographer of your time and place. And your culture, which includes technology. To truly be in the mix and be taken seriously as being in the mix, you're kind of stuck doing what your generation does. Sometimes there's a sort of "novelty" quality that sticks to photographers who are deliberately antiquarian or resolutely contrarian, as there is to musicians who do the same. But the art world, at least, and I think history as well, respects and honors the leading edge and has little time or regard for the trailing edge. Part of Cartier-Bresson's importance was that he embraced the 35mm "miniature" camera for serious work pretty early on—but if you plan to rove the world making photojournalistic-style art with a film Leica and Tri-X now, well, you could have a better eye than Henri's and you still probably won't make a splash. Not for nothing is the word "derivative" derogatory.

Or compare the early Pictorialists when that movement was emergent and vibrant to the late Pictorialists in the form of amateurs making staid, predictable artworks for the Camera Annuals and camera clubs in the 1930s. That style was passé by then and the typical strategies and tropes had declined into mannerism, and none of those later photographers matter much now. I have (or had) a well-delineated personal technique: 35mm B&W negatives printed out to the film edge on 11x14-inch paper. I called it "my 'Photo 101' technique" in 1990; now it's called "obsolete." You're "of your time" whether you know it or not; might as well embrace it.

The bottom line is that it doesn't actually matter if Nikon or Leica or any other company survives. Or if beautifully crafted multi-element large-aperture lenses are still being sold in 2045 or not. Or if cameras will resemble 1970 SLRs going forward. Everything has its arc. It doesn't matter if sales ebb or flow or diminish or grow, and it doesn't matter what comes or goes because something will. Photography will change and photographers will find new ways to be creative with whatever is current. Or they'll use something old, or something they built themselves, or something they got someone else to build for them—whatever works, whatever's fun, whatever's available. Whatever verbs their noun, as the saying goes.

As for my worry about that cellphone camera module pictured above, actually my own most recent personal project was a small portfolio of iPhone pictures...

...Although that idea sounds kinda 2009 now, doesn't it?  :-)

Mike

[TOP is off on Saturdays. I'll see you on Sunday with a new "Sunday Support Group" post. —MJ]

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kent Phelan: "The new 'Photo 101' technique is 10x15" images on 13x19" paper, preferably a paper with a bit of Baryta and an air-dried F surface. And 1970s-style cameras are still being produced. You own two of them. Well, one of them is '70s style, the other is closer to '90s style. Leica is still making Leicas, and Fuji is making Last Century bodies with current tech sensors. The photography world is awash in sea change, but some corners of it, 'the core' one might say, remain the same."

David Raboin: "You'll feel better about photography's life expectancy if you believe in 'The Lindy Effect.' What's the Lindy Effect? It's the idea that the longer a technology or idea has been around, the longer its overall life expectancy.

"Here's how Nassim Talib explains The Lindy Effect as it pertains to books: 'If a book has been in print for forty years, I can expect it to be in print for another forty years. But, and that is the main difference, if it survives another decade, then it will be expected to be in print another fifty years. This, simply, as a rule, tells you why things that have been around for a long time are not "aging" like persons, but "aging" in reverse. Every year that passes without extinction doubles the additional life expectancy. This is an indicator of some robustness. The robustness of an item is proportional to its life!'

"Photography has been around for 250 years. If the Lindy Effect applies, then we can expect photography to be around for another 250 years.

"If you're still feeling anxious about human-created two-dimensional still images of any type, consider the age of the oldest known cave paintings: 40,000 years! I am confident humans will continue to enjoy making and looking at 2D still images until the end of time. And, we'll probably continue developing technology to make 2D images that better represent our world and experiences."

Steve Jacob: "A camera, perhaps more than any other type of consumer technology, is an object of desire and a wearable status symbol. This has not changed appreciably since the 1960s.

"Sure, the Internet introduced the concept of sharing visual throwaways—the visual Tweet—and created a new imperative to share snaps, but this was something new and entirely different.

"Social media led to a steep rise in the sale of cheap P&S cameras prior to 2008, but when smartphones appeared, they were largely redundant. Easy come, easy go. A brief day in the sun from birth to extinction. Smart camera companies started supplying lenses and modules to phone companies.

"In 2010–2012, the rollout of Sony's EXMOR sensors in APS-C and FF form elevated sensor quality to a point where it pushed theoretical limits. Quantum efficiency approached 50%—which is pretty good when a colour filter is blocking so much light—and read-noise was reduced to a few measly electrons. SNR and DR were amazing.

"Sensors really have not improved all that much since, and even if they were 100% efficient, that's only a 1-stop improvement. The incentive to upgrade cameras on a biannual basis has gone forever, and that alone would account for a significant drop in ILC sales.

"Combine that with a sluggish economic recovery post-2008, and political uncertainty, and there's no real evidence that smartphones had any influence at all on ILC sales. It's just that most people who had one were keeping it for a lot longer, and were more reluctant to spend money.

"Given that Canon and Nikon have dominated the market for quite a while, their sudden switch to mirrorless, and a rather uncertain future for their volume APS-C offerings, has cause a sudden hiatus in the market. DSLR users are wary of continuing investment, and potential MILC (mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera) buyers are reluctant to invest in new lenses, given the falling trade-in values. It's Catch-22 for the Big Two.

"Leica don't seem to be particularly affected. Fuji are forging their own path and are even experiencing modest growth. Sony are doing OK and holding their own. But that wouldn't prevent the sudden decline in DSLR sales from creating a dip in the market.

"To offset the general trend, an increasingly affluent middle-class is emerging in developing countries, with an ample supply of dentists. The camera as an object of desire, the overt status symbol of the well-to-do, still has a future. It just needs to be desirable and distinctive. A plastic entry-level DSLR is about as desirable as a lump of coal, and the Colani-inspired shape of the DSLR itself is passé. They are no longer desirable, and have not been for a while. However, it doesn’t want to look too trendy and high-tech either. A $2,000 phone looks much like a $200 phone, so it's a lousy status symbol. The popularity of retro-inspired 'modern classics' is no coincidence, because they stand out. And the 'classic camera' was very much a creation of the 1960s and '70s, when neat 35mm rangefinder and SLR cameras became affordable.

"That doesn’t mean that new buyers don’t want modern conveniences, like live-view, touch control, and seamless switching from stills to video. They just want a camera to look like a camera, not a gadget. There are also things that an ILC can do that smartphones never will. I don't see a lot of sports and wildlife photographers switching to smartphones.

"Given that the issue of quantum efficiency affects smartphones as well, the only way for a smartphone to emulate a larger sensor is to take multiple images. To simulate a full-frame image, a 1/3" sensor would need to take 50 frames and merge them. Is there really any point in phone companies going to such extremes when 99% of their customers are already happy with their iPhone 6's, and sales of $1,000+ phones are declining rapidly? The sweet spot for phones seems to be around $300–$500. I doubt the kind of smartphones that will 'kill the ILC' would be anywhere close to that price bracket.

"The death of the PC was forecast many times, and although the modular PC declined, laptops running Windows still dominate the desks in most homes and offices. The basic technology and software is the same because the function they serve is the same. Smartphones do not serve the same function as ILCs, either as consumer objects of desire or as photographic devices. They are an adjunct, not a replacement.

"Futurists have a habit of extrapolating trends to zero, but most of them are also wrong. My predictions for ILCs is that they will settle back to a modest 5–7 million units a year, which is still far ahead of their pre-digital peak, and enough to keep the hobby alive for new generations of AdAms to come.

"Just don't expect to see them in Costco."

Comments

[JOHN GILLOOLY]

It's too bad that Mr. Ostroff had such a rigid hiring requirement. What if the right person comes waltzing in off the street?

[Dan Khong]

In the world of smartphones, I am tickled by those strange bedfellows. What I mean is that Huawei (phone) is married to Leica (lens). That, at least in my part of the woods, helped a lot with Huawei sales.

I have heard that the iPhone maker approached Leica first but the marriage did not work out because Apple was reluctant to pay Leica prices.

Does anybody know if this is true?

[Martin D]

Think of Eugene Atget. Well into the 1920s, he roamed the streets of Paris with his ancient 18-by-24 cm glass plate camera, making all his prints as straight contacts at home, his "studio" being hardly more than a table and a few trays. "Obsolete" technology by any standard. But photography by and for the gods.

[Eliott James]

Well written! I agree. Make good photos (good by your own standard) with your camera of choice. Be happy. Be creative. Don't over-think it. Life goes on.

[Benjamin Marks]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD3F7J2PeYU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbY_aP-alkw

Ok. [/Joke over] ;)

Seriously, though. I think that we humans are inherently visual. So as long as there is an industrial base, there will be some sort of image making device. And if there is no industrial base, we will go back to ochre on cave walls.

The "winners and losers" will change in a commercial sense (aloha Edwin Land and George Eastman) and the criteria for success in an image will change, as they always do/have.

Personally, I am waiting for the cyborg implants. Blink/click.

[Mike Ferron]

Good point. If any of us are able or lucky enough to create art the camera is of little importance. It's one's ability to see a shape, a moment, the light, the tones etc. Tri-X, phone, big film or 100mp be damned.

[Steven Palmer]

"The bottom line is that it doesn't actually matter if Nikon or Leica or any other company survives. Or if beautifully crafted multi-element large-aperture lenses are still being sold in 2045 or not"

Well, it may not matter to YOU, but it certainly matters to me.

[Jay Burleson]

Mike posted: The bottom line is that it doesn't actually matter if Nikon or Leica or any other company survives.
By including Leica in the comment you just ruined my Christmas. ;-)

[Mark Hobson]

What, me worry? ....writing from my viewpoint-a picture maker with 2 8x10 VCs, 3 4x5 VCs, a medium format system, 35mm system, Widelux panoramic camera, 4 SX-70 cameras, several “toy” cameras, all of which I used in my professional life and still possess-it doesn’t matter a wit, or shouldn’t, what tool one uses to make pictures. It also doesn’t’ matter, or shouldn’t, which particular vien of photographic vernacular one adopts to make pictures. The only thing that matters is the pictures one makes. That is, the pictures which “verb your noun”. And, in fact, all pictures are derrivative inasmuch as we are all standing on the shoulders of (picture making) giants. And, it is also reasonably accurate to write that all pictures are derrivative, dating from the first instance when a light-transmitting device-lens, aperture, shutter-was used to make the first photographic picture. So, my position is that one should stop worrying and make pictures with whatever and how ever you can “verbalize” your noun.

[Omer]

Years ago I met a wonderful photographer who, when told that a Holga could replace her beloved but discontinued Diana, replied with lament, “no, the lens in the Holga is pristine.”

[Tom Frost]

It's too easy to make images now. When I think of just about anything from back in the day, from the wet plates of O'Sullivan or Watkins, to Strand's porch shadows, to Weston and Adams (both of them), anyone can make images and get them in front of the public eye, that will, based on the monkeys at at the typewriter analogy, be interesting.

[Charles Lanteigne]

"...Although that idea sounds kinda 2015 now, doesn't it?"

Uh, Mike, Chase Jarvis published his book of iPhone pictures, the since-become-an-idiom The Best Camera Is The One That's With You, all the way back in ... 2009, a decade ago. (Sorry! :/)

[c.d.embrey]

From Mirriam-Webster https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fetish

fetish: an object (such as a small stone carving of an animal) believed to have magical power to protect or aid its owner broadly : a material object regarded with superstitious or extravagant trust or reverence

RED Digi-Cine cameras have been used since 2009 to shoot magazine covers (Megan Fox, Esquire June issue). I had shot pulled from video tape in the late 1980s. You don't need a CaNiSony camera to shoot stills.

Photos will NOT go away—but still cameras won't be used for much longer. Someday soon the wire-services will have video-camera capturing decisive moments at 120 fps/1/2000. A photo editor, helped by an algorithm will put these photos on the wire several time a minuet. A Wedding or Bar/Bat Mitzvah could be shot the same way, with the guests getting AI chosen photos transferred to their phones (in real time). How Cool is that?

[James Bullard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9mf3Bypyk8
:-) :-) :-)

[David Brown]

I am lucky enough to have work in a group show that is opening next month. In the catalog to this exhibition, we say this: "A definition of “photography” has to be, by necessity, much broader than in the past.  In contemporary use, there is a tremendous variety of technique and materials as well as stylistic applications. Many materials and processes go back decades, while others are fairly recent technological developments. In the New Photography Collective, practitioners can be found in multiple variations of the discipline, from straight-forward documentary photography, to experimental images exploring new ways to use conventional photographic materials. Various members of the collective may explore social and personal issues. Others look at history and documentation. And others are simply attempting to put on paper images that already exist in their mind."

[Bob Keefer]

I made a list of eleven things that would serve as a "street substitute" appropriate for an autodidact. I figured if I couldn't have a Masters, I could at least work toward mastery.
One of the eleven things was "work in a museum."

What were the other ten?

[Zave Shapiro]

A personal note, Mike. With paywalls going up here and there I broke down and bought into the NYTimes. And you're certainly right - there are some truly arresting photos there.

And another note, a little closer to the issue of survival of photo equipment. Fuji, whether through luck or design, seems very well positioned. They have very few basic kit lenses, unlike my old Canon 28-105 for example. Someone with a few primes and a zoom or two in the XF range has made a big investment in superior glass. Almost like the old days the light-tight boxes with a few chips or a film drive will come and go.

[Bob Johnston]

In the photographic art world at the moment old processes are now current. The "flavour of the month" seems to be wet plate collodion.

[Moose]

If someone says "I'm a painter" or I'm a sculptor", that doesn't imply, at least to me, that they make money at what they do, nor that they are in some current movement in the Art World that gets then in shows at important galleries and/or museums.

I assume they make art, whether for themselves, friends and family, a locality, country or the world.

I love TOP, but it seems odd to me that when that Mike fellow who writes on it writes photography or photographer, there is usually an implied adjective or three that leave me out.

"For one thing, in order to be a photographer of your time and place . . . To . . . be taken seriously as being in the mix, . . . Sometimes there's a sort of "novelty" quality that sticks to photographers who are deliberately antiquarian or resolutely contrarian,. . . the art world, at least, and I think history as well, respects and honors the leading edge and has little time or regard for the trailing edge."

I make pictures. I do it because it's what I like to do, and gives me satisfaction. I believe I an a better photographer in many respects than many photographers who display their work for sale.

But I have no desire (or need) to try to sell my photography. Nor do I need, or expect, to be known, let alone important.

Non commercial Un important narrowly known soon to be lost to history, photographer Moose

[John Krill]

Alfred E. Newman: What Me Worry?

You can't control the future so why worry about it.

That's my sentiment with respect to the future of stand-alone cameras. Right now I have the camera I have always wanted. So for now and in the near future, I go out every day (I'm retired.) and work on projects I have created for myself.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

It used to be 5x7 prints out to the edge of the negative; in the 70s people didn't think 35mm film could really be enlarged to 11x14, at least not consistently and reliably. But by the 90s, improvements in emulsions, and perhaps a style of photography less dependent on pushed TRI-X, might have made 11x14 possible.

[emptyspaces]

Man, switching formats & cameras is what I enjoy most about photography: so many ways to make a picture. I just bought a Welta Garant 6x9 folder, mainly to attempt some 35mm super panoramas (via a 3D printed 120-135 adapter). The camera is 80 years old and functions like new. Good times.