The future of printed pictures
March 13, 2010 Leave a comment
The profession of “photographer” is dead
In today’s digital and mobile world, everyone is a photographer. People are mobile and carry along mobile devices that most of the time can take (high) quality pictures. What’s more, the digital technology allows to take as many pictures as one can imagine. In the end, one will have made at least one picture that has the appearance of a professional photo.
“Everyone a celebrity”
I believe the “end of the photographer” should be understood within the realms of the “15-minutes-of-fame-for-everyone society”. Actually this means it’s not the end of a certain profession. Celebrities still exist. Photographers still exist. The border however to enter those categories is now hazier then ever because of the individual’s empowerment brought along by digital technologies.
Upload & pay online
Back to the pictures. People take pictures everywhere, anytime. Whether with a point&shoot, reflex or a mobile phone. Most of the time those picture are used to post online to a social media profile. Rarely those pictures are printed. The future of printed pictures however is via an online workflow. Upload your own “professional photo”, set the characteristics, pay and … there you go 2 or 3 days later you receive a professionally crafted large format print in your mailbox.