Photography and the modernization of technology

i recently watched a bbc news report about the serious problem stock photographers are facing due to the large influx of non-professional photographers into the market of stock photography. armature photographers armed with a canon rebel and photoshop now can make stock photography and sell it with relative ease and thus relatively cheaply. what does this mean for stock photographers? their coveted profession is now disintegrating before their eyes and they will either have to do shoots that are either technically too impossible (thus creating a narrow market for the product) or conceptually much stronger. two things we really do need school for.

now why do i mention this, i think it's interesting. photographers in the past held onto the their world because the high costs involved in properly developing images and time so the average joe couldn't take 1000 shots in a month and learn what they went wrong and correct it. also, the large reliance on developing techniques to create spectacular colors and compositions was another monopolizing quality of the past. a simple person with a point and shoot just didn't have the necessary time or money to be shooting at such amounts or on such film.

then comes photoshop and digital cameras. these things replaced the cost of film, thus allowing everyone to shoot 1,000 per month (i think i once averaged 10,000 in one month) and pick out the good ones. they learn from this experience, and if something doesn't come out great, you don't need to learn proper dark room techniques anymore, a simple photoshop correction will do it (and no one really cares about it being "authentic", hell, you'll be lucky to see something that isn't photoshopped these days (i know, i used to work photoshopping models skinnier).

there's even online sites which allows amateur photographers to post up the photos they have taken and sell them. obviously in the future, stock video will go the same way, it's really just a matter of time and bandwidth.

now what does that mean? i think it points out the flaws of technological reliance and the strong need for conceptualization. no matter how cool you know how to engineer something, it will always eventually become ubiquitous. i think the projector is going to become this soon, so many artists are like, look, i can project something! (and i mean myself as well) and that's it. once projectors are cheaper and everywhere, no one will care anymore because everyone can make themselves.

this brings up a funny point my classmates have shared before, you know how alot of media art or digital art all look like screen savers? why not make then into screen savers and distribute them? as more prevalent the image of the piece as a screensaver, the more cheap the original will look and there's nothing the artist can really do about it. (it's like how ikea cheapen the look of minimalist furniture, which is another example of need for concepts and higher technical excellence due to technological development).

another solution i just realized is brand marketing, but that requires still a little conceptual work. i was thinking about how murakami can withstand the assault from the LARGE explosion of asian artists now all making cartoon styled work but with none of murakami's conceptual statements (THE GIANT ROBOT SHOW WAS SHIT). but illustrative style is still something technology can not emulate. photography is easy because you can photograph something that another photographer shoots, and the two can look very much alike (i mean, you won't be able to shoot a jeff wall simply because many of his things are so staged that it's too costly for the average person, but that's under superior technique+concept).

so photography is in trouble, unless you are graduated from some conceptual photography school or you photograph famous people (sam taylor wood). sculpture is still ok, form is still like illustration of painting, so it's safe as long as people don't find out about this service where you send a photograph of what you want painted to china and they send back a painting (to expedite this process, go here). with media art, everyone is subject to not only the problem of not being taken seriously as art, but also the progress of technology can put the amazing into the mundane quickly, just look at terravision (sorry joachim). but there's nothing wrong with that, people need to get over it and accept that this is the future. as artists, we are somehow above what everyday people can do and that is what gives us value. we must all adapt to progress. those who can't adapt die