The fast paced technology of today’s world has changed the way we live, travel, speak, see and interact with each other. It has also revolutionised the photography industry. From daguerreotypes to digital cameras and phone cameras,the way photographs are taken, processed and used have changed exponentially. The industry has not become a user driven industry as consumers find different ways to use a photograph. A photograph is no longer a static medium that shows a moment isolated in time and space. Photographs taken with a camera phone are now a veritable data collection tool. With advanced technology and GPS, a photograph could tell a lot more than what meets the eye. As veteran digital commentator Kevin Connor says, “The definition of computational photography is still evolving, but I like to think of it as a shift from using a camera as a picture-making device to using it as a data-collecting device (Mayes 2015).”
The visual medium is employed for a host of purposes such as advertising, social media and mapping. A photograph provides a lot of information not only about the photographer but also the device used to take a picture, the history of the object pictured as well as the political and economic activity that goes with it.The year 2011 saw Jamie Beck and Kevin burg come up with the cinemagraph that unfreezes a photograph in time. Facebook is now experimenting with its face recognition software where people would be recognised and tagged based on their telling features. Thus a photograph is now not only a visual that freezes time and space but a treasure trove of data.With immense possibilities that technology has to offer, photography as we now know it would be a relic of the past in a few years. And this calls for changes in the industry as well as adaptability.
Almost all mobile phones are smartphones now with companies vying with each other to provide the best user experience. While Nokia Lumia brought out a phone with 41 Megapixels,Samsung introduced a mobile with optical lens that would zoom out. While these may not have been huge successes they did bring out the importance of photography with a smartphone.Companies constantly innovate with their technologies and competition is high. Corephotonics, an Israeli firm has built a camera phone that brings together optical lens without moving parts and amazing low light resolution. The future of camera phones would be in similar lines. With flash banned in many places, the customer would want a camera that would take the best picture in low light without having to make adjustments manually. Photographs should also be responsive as well as dynamic. In effect smartphones should take pictures with little input from the user and produce great photographs without the help of apps. The future of the cameraphone would be one in which every user is made to feel like a professional photographer able to manipulate the image to his or her liking and companies must keep this in mind and innovate constantly.
Works Cited
Mayes, Stephen. “The Next Revolution in Photography Is Coming”. Time. 25 Aug 2015. Web. 10 Mar 2016.
“So Long Animated GIFs, Hello Cinemagraph”. Huffington post. 26 April 2011. Web. 10 Mar 2016.
