I’m sitting in the green room right now about to take the stage with Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch down here in LA. By the time you’re reading this, I’ve just announced a new tablet form of Photoshop called Photoshop Touch (coming to iOS!!).
As I sit here running through the script for the show that’s live in 5 minutes, I stumbled upon a thought that is both sweet and bizarre. It’s this: The psd image I’m using for the demo was something I shot a few years ago. I shot it with a $40,000 camera. With a $6,000 dollar lens, and a $25,000 lighting package. And the first time we worked up this shot in post production, it took an entire day on a $10,000 computer using software priced at $1500 bucks. (Collectively that’s a lot of zeros.)
And yet, here I am today–just a few years later–I don’t own any cameras that cost that much. An image of the same quality can readily be captured with $2,000 worth of gear. I’m able to work up this multi-layered PSD image LIVE in under 5 minutes on a touch-enabled tablet that’ll cost a couple hundred bucks and is running software that (although pricing isn’t out yet) will probably be cheaper than my lunch.
Talk about a dramatic shift. I think it’s cool. Maybe you’ll hate me for that. But regardless of what I think, here are three ideas I request you take away:
1. Our industry needs to stop bemoaning the rapid changes it’s seeing. We’re not alone. Think of the shifts in 100 other industries that happening concurrently. We’re not alone.
2. No one is trying to push you out. There is no enemy, no one to hate. There is only art, technology, information, and market dynamics.
3. You can do this. You can decide what part of the story you’ll be in — and there is no right answer, you just need to decide and move forward so that you’re not caught in never-neverland. You can be fully in the old story, fully in the new story, or have a foot in both camps (people still shoot film and digital…). I just recommend that you get your head straight as to what camp you want to be in and get comfortable with it.
It’s a lot more healthy — and effective — than becoming a cork in the tide.
I love the advances and I love my Olympus Camera. I no longer have to lug around multiple lenses. I can take as many photos as I want in order to get that perfect shot without the expense of film. My 12 megapixel Olympus SP590UZ, which is basically a fancy point and shoot with 26x optical zoom allows me to shoot photos that have been published in magazinse, a newsletter for a group I volunteer for, and on big screens used for advertising as well as the website of a local garden center. It is light weight and I can hold it steady and shoot while going 60 miles an hour sitting on the back of my husbands motorcycle. The only problem I have is keeping up with all the technology and figuring out how to use the photo enhancing software.
Those who are intimidated by recent advancements in this field and others are only one thing: insecure.
Better technology, lower cost of entry, and easier access are wonderful things – they allow those with the vision to prosper where perhaps they wouldn’t have. They also push those without the vision out.
You could put the exact same camera, the exact same lighting tools, and the exact same software in all of our hands – Chase Jarvis would still make more meaningful art that the rest of us.
The more affordable things get, the more amazing artists have access and can create. Photography shouldn’t be limited to those with dough. Totally agree man.
You gotta evolve. There’s no stopping the flood of change. Either ride the wave or sink. It’s tough because it’s always changing and right when you get to where you think you know what you’re doing, you realize you don’t. I do like the constant challenge though.
Great post Chase! I love this disruptive shit!
Interesting observation, I think many of the valid points can be deciphered using the photoshop touch on the iPad!