I think this is the year that still photography will really start to die on a professional level. Here’s the thing–it’s gotten too easy to get a decent shot (everyone has a camera), edit it (have you tried Photoshop Elements’ Photomerge tools?!), and give it away for free/next to nothing to see it published (do you know someone into microstock?). Images have very little value to people anymore, and even formerly-exotic images of penguins and hummingbirds are becoming more commonplace. Fortunately for photographers, I also think this is the year that magazines as we know them will start to die.

Why is this fortunate? I think that magazines are going to start to undergo a transition from paper to bits, but in order to really give people a reason to switch over to reading them on a screen instead of on paper, publishers need to provide some compelling advantage. Video could very well be that advantage. What if the palm trees in that article on Hawaii were swaying in the breeze or the model in the article on fashion trends was walking down a runway or you could listen to the engine noise that the new Ferrari makes in its review? Doesn’t that sound more exciting and like a more engaging experience? Wouldn’t this be worth an extra dollar or two? And did you know that HTML 5 has a native video tag? Whether people view this content on a smart phone, tablet, netbook, or desktop, I think this will be the future of periodicals (I feel the need to mention I have no advance knowledge of any product, hardware or software, speculated about in this article).

Obviously, still images won’t cut it anymore. Photographers need to start thinking like cinematographers and visual storytellers, and fortunately new DSLRs with video capabilities are giving us the tools. When shooting, we need to think what it’ll take to put or image into motion to convey something. If our exposure’s faster than 1/60s (typically the closest we can get to 1/48s, which is the right exposure for a film-ish look at 24fps with a 180 degree shutter), consider shooting overcranked at 60fps or beyond to really slow down and capture the action. Or use a ND filter to slow the shutter speed down so that we can keep a shallow depth of field. If we need a slow exposure, think about timelapse. I think this timelapse video I did of the northern lights with my 1Ds is more dynamic than a still shot. Needing multiple frames for HDR won’t be as much of an issue as sensors become capable of capturing more and more dynamic range, and face it, we don’t leave our images in 32bit mode anyway–we tone map them down to a range that can be displayed or printed.

I suspect a new type of market will emerge for these moving images. You typically can’t tell a full story with just one clip. I suspect clip packages, with lots of coverage (different shots from different angles) designed to cut well together, will become the new common item we sell so that ad designers/editors can cut together the perfect sequence to accompany each article or advertisement.

Here’s why this is all good for photographers–it’s still hard to do video well! There are far more elements to video than just getting your exposure right. While I personally think that lighting with continuous hot lights is easier than flash, I also think it’s far harder to setup a good-looking moving camera, especially in the field, than it is to blast away at 10fps and pick the one image that works. High-quality video content is still out of reach of most people, and I think that people still value it.

Lastly, let’s think about software. I don’t think that Final Cut will become the new Photoshop, as I don’t think photographers will be responsible for cutting their own sequences. However, I suspect that photographers will become well-versed in Motion to take their clips to the next level. I very much hope that future versions of Aperture (yes, I’m biased, I don’t care about Lightroom) will let us treat a Quicktime file the same way we do a RAW file, making albums and stacks with them, and even applying adjustments to each clip. I also hope that PhotoShelter will let me treat a mov file just like a still photo, generating small previews, adding watermarks, and doing all the other wonderful management things I’ve gotten used to.

That’s my prediction. Your thoughts?

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 8:29pm and is filed under Digital Workflow, Teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.