Hoping to attract influential eyes and ears, I once named my teenage band’s demo tape ‘Shut Up And Listen To The Next Big Thing’. Thirty years on, the music industry’s still obsessed with finding that next big thing, now aided by metadata and follower numbers. But by contrast it feels like the photo industry’s taken its foot off the gas. Its next big thing looks like the last big thing. Whether that’s retro styled cameras or the re-emergence of point and shoot compacts and super zooms.
OK, it’s all fresh to a millennial and Gen Z audience glued to TikTok who missed such devices the first time around. And still seductively nostalgic to those of us over forty, if feeling a little lazy. Almost like: ‘will this do?’
The photo industry’s other ‘big thing’ has been pivoting towards ‘video first’ models. We’ve heard that Trump-like refrain from Canon and Sony – unsurprisingly, what with their camcorder heritage – while Panasonic has eased traditionalists in more gently by referring to its ‘hybrid’ offerings. And now Nikon, having beefed up its ‘Z’ cameras’ video performance for a while, has made good on its RED partnership by unveiling the all-in-one ZR cinema camera.
Though it can sometimes feel like we should all be hellbent on shooting filmic ‘content’ and uploading it for followers, such ‘video first’ devices are still relatively niche in the great scheme of things. Not all of us are best suited to leaping around on YouTube begging strangers to ‘like and subscribe’.
Artificial Intelligence is another big deal for camera manufacturers, having now infiltrated the auto focus and subject recognition systems of our mirrorless models like some alien life form. And beyond that having an increasing impact on our everyday and working lives: did I even write this column, or did AI compose it for me?
And who even wants perfect pictures anyway? David Bailey once told me that it was OK to be slightly disappointed by images you’d shot. It motivated him to try harder and do better the next time he squeezed the shutter release.
I think we all feel a bit like that; that hopefully our ‘best picture’ is yet to be captured. Do we need more technology to hold our hands even tighter to accomplish that? I often suspect we’re at the stage where gimmick is being applied on top of gimmick.
Might the next evolution in image creation do away with the need for a standalone camera, or camera phone entirely? And involve our being able to commit an image to memory in the blink of an eye, literally?
While I’m squeamish about electrodes being implanted in my brain to allow me to do this, we already have something part of the way there in Google Glass. An old friend of mine was so into his tech he professed he’d be happy to be part cyborg in the future. But that’s a step too far for me.
Voice activated shutters I can live with, mind activated shutters I can live without.
And that demo tape? One reviewer wrote: ‘well I’ve shut up and listened. Not sure about the next big thing, this sounds more like the last big thing’. Perhaps, then, we’re all destined to live in an innovation loop. Doomed to endlessly return to what we loved about a product in the first place.
The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on this topic, or any other photography related subject, email: ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk
