What’s Next For Photography?

What’s Next For Photography?

What’s next for photography? What’s in its future?

In the coming decades, will bringing your DSRL into space not seem like such a far-fetched notion? Will we even be using DSRLs?

Photo by Donald Pettit

NASA astronaut Donald Pettit has shot some of the most iconic photos taken 240 miles up in space – and brought 10 Nikon DSLRs with him to get the job done. Isn’t that what you would do if you were going to spend over 370 days in space?

NASA astronaut Donald Pettit with his 10 DSLRs

Or, is the future of photography about looking to the past? Are we going to strive to preserve “dinosaur” methods like film (gasp!) or start mixing techniques to blend the old with the new?

David Burnett has over 40 years experience covering the news of our age. It’s no small thing that he was named one of the “100 Most Important People in Photography” by American Photo magazine. From famine in Africa to the Summer Olympics, David has been there with both digital and film cameras to capture some of the most important moments of the last century.

What’s next – greater focus on the “shock value” of a photograph?

Photo by Tyler Shields

Tyler Shields has raised a few eyebrows in his time, to say the least, for his provocative images that often feature violence and splattered blood. Is he raising photography to a new level or just using his subjects for the sake of controversy? And why do you care?

Photo by Tyler Shields

Is the future of photography in feeding the insatiable appetite for celebrity news? Will photojournalism be replaced by the domination of paparazzi in the media?

Photo via Splash News/Kanye West and Kim Kardashian go to check out a home in Westchester, NY

Splash News is built around the consumers’ – and thus the media’s – demand for celebrity entertainment. Paparazzi have changed the face of traditional media forever.

What do you think is next for photography?

David Burnett, Donald Pettit, Tyler Shields, and Gary Morgan from Splash News are all on board to discuss the future on photography at Luminance 2012. The conference is just one week away, and joining these final additions to our lineup are speakers from Facebook, Google, Blurb, Behance, 20×200, Hipstamatic, and more. Check out our full list of all 26 speakers.

Tickets are selling fast, but are still available for the conference on September 12 & 13 in New York City. Register before it’s too late!

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There are 4 comments for this article
    • Lauren Margolis at 12:32 pm

      @London Photographer We won’t be live streaming the conference, but videos will definitely be made available in the weeks after the event!

  1. Nicolas Raymond at 6:47 am

    Interesting article. If I had to give an answer, I would say all of the above. I think people will always crave current trends and events, along with new eye-catching content they haven’t seen before. But “new content” is often derived from mixing and matching existing content in an original way.

    As the trends come and go, I also think certain trends get cemented into classic imagery that never fade away. Traditional photography is a good example, for one of 2 reasons. First it holds a nostalgic / historical value, and second there’s a spillover from the early days of photography which we very much appreciate to this day: Black & White. It has this uncanny ability of stripping an image down to its purest form & emotion, although these days I have to admit Black & White can be processed just as well from a digital file… maybe even better because you can start with an intact colour photo and apply all sorts of effects while post-processing.

    Nevertheless, I believe there will still be a place for film photography, at least for those who still love to get their hands dirty in the darkroom because it does demonstrate the artist went one step further to give his picture a human touch. But I think it will fall more into a fine arts market with less widespread commercial appeal.

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