If you haven’t noticed, we’re surrounded by photography. We not only consume copious amounts of photography through social media and everywhere else online, but we’re just as likely to create photos on a daily basis – whether it’s with our DSLRs or phones.

This increase in consumption and creation has had an irrefutable effect on our world. Massive technological advances have brought high resolution cameras to our phones, created chips more sensitive to light than our eyes, and allowed us to view life at 1000 frames per second. Billion dollar companies have been created, social networks have thrived as a result of the “glue” that photography provides, and photos have simultaneously lost all value and sold for millions of dollars.

This incredible inflection point in the photography industry was the impetus for putting on Luminance 2012. In the course of two days, we heard from over two dozen speakers from a variety of industries speak about what photography means today, and what it might mean tomorrow. From the most decorated of photographers (David Burnett, Zack Arais, Peter Yang), to the technologists who are redefining how photos are captured (leaders from 20×200, Lytro, Facebook Photos), Luminance provided a tremendous amount of thought provoking material, which we are excited to share with you with our Luminance 2012 Speaker Videos.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be releasing groups of speaker videos. Check out the first batch now, and then register for our list serv to stay updated as more videos become available.

We hope you take the time to watch and contemplate, or maybe just scream out your visceral reaction. Whatever the case may be, we want to hear your thoughts. Tweet #luminance. Leave comments on the videos. Blog your thoughts. Instagram a response. Help us contemplate what photography is and where it’s going.