11 ms·

The Death of the Photo Studio

66 points by karanganesan 6y ago

TOGoS 6y ago
'computational photography' is interesting because it requires a different way of thinking about what an image is than what we were used to. As if going through a certain shaped lens is the only way to make "real" photos. My own thinking on the subject got severely reshaped when I took it upon myself to write some alternative lens models for Chunky[1] (the Minecraft scene path-tracer) and later my own path-tracer[2]. Once I realized that every pixel on the screen could be mapped to any virtual light-sensor position and direction, suddenly projections were arbitrary. I could define a lens that wrapped around the subject, pointing inwards if I wanted, and that was no less 'real' than a pinhole or fisheye lens. Of course modern phones take things a bit further than just straightforward transformations. Guessing what's between the pixels or selectively blending multiple images together maybe crosses my subjective threshold between what I think of as a 'real image' and a 'made-up' one. Especially as the AI gets smarter. Because I can no longer understand exactly what happened. [1] https://chunky.llbit.se/ https://chunky.llbit.se/ [2] https://github.com/TOGoS/SolidTree/ https://github.com/TOGoS/SolidTree/
ekianjo 6y ago
> It will then add a blur to that background to simulate Bokeh. Yeah, and it looks completely awful and utterly fake. The author forgot to mention that 'detail'.
- Sebb767 6y ago
  > and it looks completely awful and utterly fake To people who know good Bokeh. Your average user is pretty used to the fake one.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    You will easily notice it as the edges are usually completely wrong.
- grumbel 6y ago
  None of that loss of detail matters much once the image is scaled down to Internet-typical resolutions. Doesn't help that photographers often don't even give you access to the full resolution images, so even if you make use of one, you don't end up with something that is superior to whatever your phone-AI can fake together.
  - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    In general it seems utterly bizarre the obsession with the press and users about how hyped the new iPhone camera is every year when all the photos and videos end up on Instagram that compresses everything to a smudge of jpeg/mp4 compression marks anyway. Surprised we haven't had a social network where the gimmick is just high quality photo and video that actually looks as good once it's uploaded as it did on your monitor.
    - spideymans 6y ago
      Go back and look at Instagram or Vine posts from five to seven years ago, and compare them to today. The improvement in image and video quality is dramatic. We just don’t think the improvement in imaging is a big deal, as year-over-year improvements are minor.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      > Surprised we haven't had a social network where the gimmick is just high quality photo and video that actually looks as good once it's uploaded as it did on your monitor. Isn't Flickr kind of doing that? And there's https://www.smugmug.com/ https://www.smugmug.com/ as well.
crazygringo 6y ago
Counterpoint: as your online identity becomes more and more of your brand, the need for a professional, high-quality headshot is more important than ever. (Less so for full-time engineers, but absolutely for management, sales, consultants, etc.) Headshot photographers not only provide crucial professional lighting expertly adjusted for the contours of your face, but also have a grab bag of techniques to establish rapport and get an authentic, confident, warm expression out of you that is almost impossible to get otherwise for most people. Not to mention work with you to get the right tone and look -- the background and lighting and expression a quirky food blogger needs will be totally different from a conservative CEO, which again is totally different from Brooklyn fiction author. And because of people's need to brand themselves online, headshot photographers who 20 years ago had actors as 95% of their business, now have business professionals as a majority of their clients. Business is booming. The photo studio isn't going anywhere -- it's just changing what and who we need to take photos of.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  You forgot dating. Since it has moved online, my younger male friends have spent quite a lot of money on professional photographers(not in studios, but outdoors) to get that perfect candid shot at dusk in their new attire, hoping for an edge in the overcrowded dating market. Thanks to tinder and Instagram, dating is now a continuous arms race for young males and I assume it comes with it's own set of potential mental illnesses.
  - werber 6y ago
    In my circle of friends I’m the de facto photographer and usually use my iPhone and while we all have the same technology the majority of my friends end up using the pictures i take of them. I think even with a flattened playing field technologically and near endless storage the ability to edit and see the best side of someone is still a valuable skill
  - annpierce 6y ago
    Can confirm as my startup addresses this market [https://www.photofeeler.com https://www.photofeeler.com]. The top dating apps are designed such that photos are literally all that matter. What's worse is all of the popular cultural ideas we have about photos are wrong. Photos don't just show people accurately -- in fact, you need some level of skill just to look as attractive as you do in real life. So no, that unsmiling selfie you took in your basement isn't "just what you look like" or "authentic." Not to mention, people think and do. Images are still. This creates a situation where humanity can be easily lost. And where the need to brand yourself and put a lot of effort into showing hobbies etc. is paramount. It's sad to see so many young guys tie their identities to the good or bad performance of their profiles when it's not really them being judged but the pictures they chose.
the-dude 6y ago
The birth of the Video Studio.
- imagetic 6y ago
  Already dead too.
tomaszdiesel 6y ago
> It will then add a blur to that background to simulate Bokeh. and yet again a blog post about photography where the author can't differentiate between bokeh and depth of field.
- have_faith 6y ago
  The concepts are interlinked, no need to take offence.
- gerikson 6y ago
  I'm confused. Bokeh refers to the quality of the blur. Applying a filter to an originally sharp background (because of a deep depth of field) can absolutely simulate bokeh. It may be bad bokeh, but then plenty of lenses have bad out of focus rendering.
  - LyndsySimon 6y ago
    I’m only a “semi-serious” photographer at this point, but I’ve spent thousands of dollars in the past ten years based largely on the subjective quality of bokeh.
    - gerikson 6y ago
      I tend to shoot at f/5.6 unless the light is low.
      - LyndsySimon 6y ago
        I’m actually not sure what I “normally” shoot at. I shoot manual and dynamically adjust my settings to the scene almost unconsciously. Now I’m curious to see if I can run some statistics against my Lightroom library. I shoot a Fujifilm X-E2, and am hoping to upgrade to an X-Pro3 fairly soon. I’ve put off upgrading my camera for years in favor of buying better glass. My favorite/most used lens is a 23mm f/1.4. I know I rarely use it wide open unless I’m shooting at night, and in that case I’m also usually also shooting monochrome. That lens is awesome for low light and indoor candidates, and even with my generations-old X-E2 I have enough resolution (16MP) to crop in when I need to. My next favorite is a 35mm f/2. With the crop factor, it’s ~50mm and nearly perfect for street photography. There is a quality to that lens that I have difficulty describing - the closest I can get is that it’s “Leica-like”. I also recently picked up a used 18-55mm f/2.8-4. Zoom lenses aren’t really my thing, and variable-aperture zoom even less so. This lens was so cheap that it didn’t make sense not to buy it, and it’s turned out to be very capable as long as I’m outdoors in full light. It gives me a bit more reach, which is important sometimes for me. A lot of my photography is done either of my kids or for the dance studio I and my wife own, so while it’s not my favorite lens it does see quite a bit of use and is often the right tool for the job. Examples: XF23mmF1.4 R | ISO 400 | f/4 | 1/250s - Outdoor, stage shot of a dance performance: https://adobe.ly/3f9rbmH https://adobe.ly/3f9rbmH XF23mmF1.4 R | ISO 1600 | f/2 | 1/60s - Indoor, with terrible lighting and a glossy background: https://adobe.ly/332b9IN https://adobe.ly/332b9IN XF35mmF2 R WR | ISO 200 | f/8 | 1.170s - Outdoor, street photography in Cleveland: https://adobe.ly/2X6CTbk https://adobe.ly/2X6CTbk XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS | ISO 1600 | f/4 | 1/500s - Outdoors, my youngest daughter riding a go-kart: https://adobe.ly/3f5o6Ec https://adobe.ly/3f5o6Ec
masona 6y ago
The article covers a lot of territory but I can say from experience that the limitations to current CGI techniques mean that automation is still a ways away. I produced all the shots for a global diaper company that is on shelf today. The pack designs were a tough format: images needed to be extremely horizontal on one side, and vertical on the reverse. But you can't just ask the photographer to shoot wide and crop in, because the new HD Flexo printing is way more hi-res. The approach at the time was to take the baby imagery and 'paint in' the extra background in Photoshop, a very time-consuming process that had to be repeated for every single image for every single region, with wildly inconsistent results. We created a replica of the on-set nursery in CGI, all the way down to matching the lighting in the C4D studio. Yes it made the process way more flexible, yes we could localize everything with a new render, and yes we could add props or change the decor. But every render required a human eye to match the camera angles/scale of the baby shots. The uncanny valley is real, even with all the little tricks you can do to make it seem more photorealistic. I do like the idea of AI-generated baby faces - the casting process / ethnicity requirements / rights management challenges are real. And maybe it wouldn't be all that bad if everyone knew that the babies weren't human. But the cost to develop and manage that system require real experts, a huge expense for a company that only needs baby shoots every so often. I imagine a version of 'thisbabydoesntexist' and how that would even slot into the content production workflow - it feels impossible. It's much cheaper to outsource this stuff to production companies that are smart about how they capture all the different kinds of content. There are definitely companies where CGI makes sense to develop in-house. IKEA's approach comes to mind since they have super modular and global approach to furniture. But most companies have such a big product turnover that photography is still cheaper. Don't even get me started on hard-to-render products that require serious expertise to visualize. We tried to develop a CGI diaper but wow it was insanely complex. I'm optimistic about the future of the space since there is so much design territory to explore in terms of workflow improvements. But I still love something real - my wife is shooting a story for a national magazine today on a local woodworking artist and I know it could never in a million years be automated. The more that computational photography advances, the more important meatspace photography will become.
- justjash 6y ago
  This seems like a very difficult way to do things unless you really needed to mess with items in the background. I would think there is still plenty of room to crop a single image down from something like a new Canon 1D. Even just making a composite image if really needed sounds much easier.
crmrc114 6y ago
Can someone on HN explain why some links to medium try to make me setup an account to read while others go to a clean well designed blog style post, the way they should. Is this a setting based on popularity of the article? who is posting?
- crazygringo 6y ago
  I think it's based on how often you visit Medium. If it's your first time visiting in a ~month, you just see the article. If it's your ~third time, they ask for an account. Just open the URL in an incognito window when you get that -- it's what I do.
- recursivecaveat 6y ago
  Some medium articles are 'medium exclusive' (I don't remember the exact term). In theory, only people paying for a medium membership can view them, but in return they get a little more juice in medium's internal advertising. Many people inadvertently choose this setting because of some dark patterns around the publishing interface. Everyone gets a couple views of the members-only articles a month free, functionally infinite if you use incognito mode. I think there's also a random pop-up to harass you into using the app/an-account which is orthogonal.
chiffre01 6y ago
I for one hate it when buying something online and the only photos posted are clearly done in a studio with lots of post-processing, or worse renderings. I end up having to look at user posted photos or ebay to see what the item truly looks like.
- Wistar 6y ago
  There used to be a site that showed the advertising version of a fast-food item versus the reality of that item as delivered to your hand. Dramatic difference.
  - johannes1234321 6y ago
    https://youtu.be/oSd0keSj2W8 https://youtu.be/oSd0keSj2W8 here is a McDonald's marketing video on how they improve the burger for the shot. Of course that's marketing and they have other tools in addition, like not using real ingelredients but mocks etc.
    - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
      Think the reality of fast food photography has some crossover to the subject, photo studios are less important because you can just take 200 photos with your own camera and then pick the 1 good shot from that. With fast food photography, it's the same ingredients they just brute force it and have a whole stack of genuine buns, pickles, patties to pick the best of a bad bunch.
      - johannes1234321 6y ago
        Even when having the ingredients you have to take care that lights are probably warm and if you aren't quick the salad of your nicely setup burger might lose its structure and color and the sauce and grease might start flowing. But of course: producing good mockups isn't cheap either. In the end it will always have to pick between picking the proper ingredients, some mockups and Photoshop. And as they tell: Point is that one can see what's inside and nobody seriously expects the delivered fast food product to match the picture. (If there's a tomato on the picture however I hope there's a tomato slice somewhere on the real thing)
syntheno 6y ago
Its all really cool technology, and I love the convenience of having a smartphone camera in my pocket, which I use often, for the right type of photography and when no other option is available. But right now you simply cant beat the results of a high end digital camera. The quality simply blows phone cameras out of the water in every conceivable way, even amateurs can tell the difference.
SeanFerree 6y ago
Having a professional photo can make a big difference. I can see how phones and technology has made it so that anyone can take photos. The studio takes a hit because people don't need to go. Much like a music studio. People can record at home, but the professional makes a difference. The internet is a tool to share the photographer's work (if properly branded). The internet has also made a huge supply of photos, so the general demand for quality has declined. Music is much the same. I have a belief that the demand for high quality, professional photos and music will come back in style at some point. It will come back to people happily paying for music or photos as it once was. You can't expect things to be free and also expect quality
imagetic 6y ago
I blame social media and mass low resolution consumption more than I blame smart phones for the shift in the media industry. If I zoom in to almost any cell phone photo, it's no match for a professional with a larger format sensor or studio with lighting. But those details are lost. The appreciation for the craft has also faded. With so much media to create / consume, the bar has lowered across the board. But industries that used to be profitable are hard to break into now. Food photography is a prime example. I recently did a shoot with a company and their chef convinced them they could just use cell phones in the future. I can't argue it. If the only place you're publishing to is 1800px and the content exists for 1-2 days on the front of your feed, it's pretty hard to justify a full crew and big production shoot. You have to really see your media / product as an investment and be gunning for a bigger picture to really gain a value out of a larger media operation.
hownottowrite 6y ago
I’ve run a creative studio as well an an independent photography practice for many years and much of what this article says about the future is true. The main driver here is to reduce costs and increase output by removing the human element. It gets closer each and every day. But at the same time, the high end keeps getting higher and that’s why the photo studio is still going to be around for a long, long time.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
I feel as if we will see fewer, but far better, pro photographers. It will probably be some time before we have AI-assisted composition and lighting, and that's the real secret sauce of high-impact photography. That kind of thing comes from having an emotional being in charge of the photography device. They "feel" the image, as much as they "see" the image, and know how to capture it in a way that will have others feel the power of the image. That is what separates the pros from the amateurs. But those pros now have some truly marvelous tools to help them to capture that emotion. This is like the growth of CGI. When the tools first appeared, they were high geek-factor monsters that only an engineer could use, so only engineers used them, with predictable results. That resulted in some technically marvelous, but not particularly enjoyable, stuff[0]. Then John Lasseter and Pixar happened. Anyone remember the "Luxo Jr." animation?[1] That was where the world changed. For the first time, emotion was reflected in CGI. Nowadays, true artists can do amazing things with tools like Blender, Maya and After Effects. There are now feature-length CGI movies that can have 300-lb cage fighters sobbing in their beer. Until AI can produce emotions (shudder at the thought), there will always be a need for pro emotional craftsmen. The tools and medium may change, but artists have been around since the days of the Maltravieso Gallery. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP2RUD_cL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP2RUD_cL0 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4NPQ8mfKU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4NPQ8mfKU0
VLM 6y ago
Its an interesting tech study but don't forget the business side. I'm so incredibly old (LOL being sarcastic) that I remember high school yearbooks had school photographers for K-11 however seniors had to submit professional photographer pictures. You see it had only been made illegal a generation ago to submit a photo with every resume. In theory, photos were submitted to see if the applicant could clean up and dress in a professional stylish manner. It was made illegal in the 60s for very theoretical discrimination reasons. As if during an interview a manager wouldn't notice an applicant was black or a woman, but via the miracle of photography they could notice, LOL. Anyway culture and especially the ed establishment moves slowly so they were still preparing kids to submit photos with their resumes in the 80s despite it being illegal since the 60s. So seniors had to submit photos. Anyway the whole point of this anecdote is culture moves slow, and until "recently" if you wanted to graduate HS and get a job you needed a zillion copies of yourself from a professional studio. Also see Department of the Army standard "DA photo" for promotion packets, and the peculiar government requirements of passport photos. The days of 50% of the male population having served in the military are long gone with the WWII vets, the population as a whole, countrywide, is getting waaaay too poor to internationally travel thus no need for passports, etc.
- cosmodisk 6y ago
  It's a bit funny how it's illegal to submit CV with a photo( in most countries,at least) yet the second some HR drone opens your CV, they'd go on LinkedIn or other platforms to check what's going on.
  - ido 6y ago
    Submitting CV with a photo is actually an expectation in the German speaking countries!
ruminasean 6y ago
Professional photographer here who does portraits and product. I’d say not “dead,” just very different. We’ve taken a hit, yes, but mostly amongst the problematic clients who say things like “you shot this in 2 hours, why do I need to pay a whole day rate?” They go and shoot their stuff with a phone, it looks like garbage but in some way they can’t quite articulate but it’s good enough, and we’re happy to not have to deal with them any longer. There is another segment, that of the client who bought a consumer crop-sensor DSLR and a white box off of Amazon and told us “hey sorry but anyone can do this now.” Or they picked up a cheap strobe kit and a lens that the blogs said had “creamy bokeh” and they can’t figure out what they’re doing wrong. Generally we see them slink back in a month or so later and quietly hire us back. This is very common. Is the future scary? Yes. Am I sure I’ll be able to work as studio photographer forever? Nope. But as with anything, doing one’s homework and having a commitment to quality while paying attention to what’s happening in the photo world can keep you successful for the time being. The points addressed in the article are good ones and I try to stay up on all of it, but there are plenty of companies who still pay good money for photography don’t have access to the level of digital rendering that he’s talking about. They have a small product and a couple grand and they need a well-done photo in two days. And yes, you can bang out something with a phone and an app or two, but it’s not “there” yet. Is it a privilege to hire a professional photographer for your headshot rather than something someone did on a phone? Of course. I’ve also shot plenty of headshots pro bono for aspiring folks who have a dream and work their asses off and can’t seem to get there, whether or not I was already set up for a paid shoot. My friends mostly do this as well.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  Another end of the company I work for (I'm in media operations, digital) is focused on custom content which is largely comprised of marketing materials, catalogs, etc (and they still print on paper!). The company actually maintains a selection modern photo studios solely for use within the company. The clients still want that kind of quality. (There are a couple of glimpses of their large studios in the slides on the homepage https://www.stjoseph.com/ https://www.stjoseph.com/) Of course, I can't speak for the entire industry—but it's not dead yet! At least in the less sexy areas like product shoots for grocery stores, or car promos.
scandox 6y ago
Perhaps slightly OT but nonetheless interesting. I met a former professional photographer who had become an economic analyst. He used to do fashion and music shoots for major magazines (Conde Nast etc..). He gave me an interesting insight into why his former business collapsed. First of all he said that his photography business was predicated on the fact that he held the whip hand with respect to his clients: they needed to be absolutely sure that the person they sent out got the right shots on the day. There wasn't going to be another opportunity to ask Bono or whoever to do them over. So Conde Nast had to be absolutely sure that he would produce the goods. For him to be good enough to be sure of always getting the shots no matter the conditions, weather, light conditions etc...the photographer had to have the requisite experience and the only way traditionally they could get that experience was by using up a lot of film. In his view the cost of the film you would need to go through to have got to his level was approximately £60,000. That was the barrier to entry. With the barrier to entry and with his strong position with respect to his customers he got two important things: a high level of pay and royalties on renewals for his work. So they not only paid him but he had an ongoing revenue for shots they had paid him to take, if they wanted to reuse them over time. Once Digital got good enough, the barrier to entry fell and the magazines slowly gained the upper hand, paid less and didn't agree to the same terms. So now he advises Banks on something or other.

66 points by karanganesan 6y ago

'computational photography' is interesting because it requires a different way of thinking about what an image is than what we were used to. As if going through a certain shaped lens is the only way to make "real" photos. My own thinking on the subject got severely reshaped when I took it upon myself to write some alternative lens models for Chunky[1] (the Minecraft scene path-tracer) and later my own path-tracer[2]. Once I realized that every pixel on the screen could be mapped to any virtual light-sensor position and direction, suddenly projections were arbitrary. I could define a lens that wrapped around the subject, pointing inwards if I wanted, and that was no less 'real' than a pinhole or fisheye lens. Of course modern phones take things a bit further than just straightforward transformations. Guessing what's between the pixels or selectively blending multiple images together maybe crosses my subjective threshold between what I think of as a 'real image' and a 'made-up' one. Especially as the AI gets smarter. Because I can no longer understand exactly what happened. [1] https://chunky.llbit.se/ https://chunky.llbit.se/ [2] https://github.com/TOGoS/SolidTree/ https://github.com/TOGoS/SolidTree/

ekianjo 6y ago

> It will then add a blur to that background to simulate Bokeh. Yeah, and it looks completely awful and utterly fake. The author forgot to mention that 'detail'.

Sebb767 6y ago
> and it looks completely awful and utterly fake To people who know good Bokeh. Your average user is pretty used to the fake one.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  You will easily notice it as the edges are usually completely wrong.
grumbel 6y ago
None of that loss of detail matters much once the image is scaled down to Internet-typical resolutions. Doesn't help that photographers often don't even give you access to the full resolution images, so even if you make use of one, you don't end up with something that is superior to whatever your phone-AI can fake together.
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  In general it seems utterly bizarre the obsession with the press and users about how hyped the new iPhone camera is every year when all the photos and videos end up on Instagram that compresses everything to a smudge of jpeg/mp4 compression marks anyway. Surprised we haven't had a social network where the gimmick is just high quality photo and video that actually looks as good once it's uploaded as it did on your monitor.
  - spideymans 6y ago
    Go back and look at Instagram or Vine posts from five to seven years ago, and compare them to today. The improvement in image and video quality is dramatic. We just don’t think the improvement in imaging is a big deal, as year-over-year improvements are minor.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    > Surprised we haven't had a social network where the gimmick is just high quality photo and video that actually looks as good once it's uploaded as it did on your monitor. Isn't Flickr kind of doing that? And there's https://www.smugmug.com/ https://www.smugmug.com/ as well.

crazygringo 6y ago

Counterpoint: as your online identity becomes more and more of your brand, the need for a professional, high-quality headshot is more important than ever. (Less so for full-time engineers, but absolutely for management, sales, consultants, etc.) Headshot photographers not only provide crucial professional lighting expertly adjusted for the contours of your face, but also have a grab bag of techniques to establish rapport and get an authentic, confident, warm expression out of you that is almost impossible to get otherwise for most people. Not to mention work with you to get the right tone and look -- the background and lighting and expression a quirky food blogger needs will be totally different from a conservative CEO, which again is totally different from Brooklyn fiction author. And because of people's need to brand themselves online, headshot photographers who 20 years ago had actors as 95% of their business, now have business professionals as a majority of their clients. Business is booming. The photo studio isn't going anywhere -- it's just changing what and who we need to take photos of.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
You forgot dating. Since it has moved online, my younger male friends have spent quite a lot of money on professional photographers(not in studios, but outdoors) to get that perfect candid shot at dusk in their new attire, hoping for an edge in the overcrowded dating market. Thanks to tinder and Instagram, dating is now a continuous arms race for young males and I assume it comes with it's own set of potential mental illnesses.
- werber 6y ago
  In my circle of friends I’m the de facto photographer and usually use my iPhone and while we all have the same technology the majority of my friends end up using the pictures i take of them. I think even with a flattened playing field technologically and near endless storage the ability to edit and see the best side of someone is still a valuable skill
- annpierce 6y ago
  Can confirm as my startup addresses this market [https://www.photofeeler.com https://www.photofeeler.com]. The top dating apps are designed such that photos are literally all that matter. What's worse is all of the popular cultural ideas we have about photos are wrong. Photos don't just show people accurately -- in fact, you need some level of skill just to look as attractive as you do in real life. So no, that unsmiling selfie you took in your basement isn't "just what you look like" or "authentic." Not to mention, people think and do. Images are still. This creates a situation where humanity can be easily lost. And where the need to brand yourself and put a lot of effort into showing hobbies etc. is paramount. It's sad to see so many young guys tie their identities to the good or bad performance of their profiles when it's not really them being judged but the pictures they chose.

the-dude 6y ago

The birth of the Video Studio.

imagetic 6y ago
Already dead too.

tomaszdiesel 6y ago

> It will then add a blur to that background to simulate Bokeh. and yet again a blog post about photography where the author can't differentiate between bokeh and depth of field.

have_faith 6y ago
The concepts are interlinked, no need to take offence.
gerikson 6y ago
I'm confused. Bokeh refers to the quality of the blur. Applying a filter to an originally sharp background (because of a deep depth of field) can absolutely simulate bokeh. It may be bad bokeh, but then plenty of lenses have bad out of focus rendering.
- LyndsySimon 6y ago
  I’m only a “semi-serious” photographer at this point, but I’ve spent thousands of dollars in the past ten years based largely on the subjective quality of bokeh.
  - gerikson 6y ago
    I tend to shoot at f/5.6 unless the light is low.
    - LyndsySimon 6y ago
      I’m actually not sure what I “normally” shoot at. I shoot manual and dynamically adjust my settings to the scene almost unconsciously. Now I’m curious to see if I can run some statistics against my Lightroom library. I shoot a Fujifilm X-E2, and am hoping to upgrade to an X-Pro3 fairly soon. I’ve put off upgrading my camera for years in favor of buying better glass. My favorite/most used lens is a 23mm f/1.4. I know I rarely use it wide open unless I’m shooting at night, and in that case I’m also usually also shooting monochrome. That lens is awesome for low light and indoor candidates, and even with my generations-old X-E2 I have enough resolution (16MP) to crop in when I need to. My next favorite is a 35mm f/2. With the crop factor, it’s ~50mm and nearly perfect for street photography. There is a quality to that lens that I have difficulty describing - the closest I can get is that it’s “Leica-like”. I also recently picked up a used 18-55mm f/2.8-4. Zoom lenses aren’t really my thing, and variable-aperture zoom even less so. This lens was so cheap that it didn’t make sense not to buy it, and it’s turned out to be very capable as long as I’m outdoors in full light. It gives me a bit more reach, which is important sometimes for me. A lot of my photography is done either of my kids or for the dance studio I and my wife own, so while it’s not my favorite lens it does see quite a bit of use and is often the right tool for the job. Examples: XF23mmF1.4 R | ISO 400 | f/4 | 1/250s - Outdoor, stage shot of a dance performance: https://adobe.ly/3f9rbmH https://adobe.ly/3f9rbmH XF23mmF1.4 R | ISO 1600 | f/2 | 1/60s - Indoor, with terrible lighting and a glossy background: https://adobe.ly/332b9IN https://adobe.ly/332b9IN XF35mmF2 R WR | ISO 200 | f/8 | 1.170s - Outdoor, street photography in Cleveland: https://adobe.ly/2X6CTbk https://adobe.ly/2X6CTbk XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS | ISO 1600 | f/4 | 1/500s - Outdoors, my youngest daughter riding a go-kart: https://adobe.ly/3f5o6Ec https://adobe.ly/3f5o6Ec

masona 6y ago

The article covers a lot of territory but I can say from experience that the limitations to current CGI techniques mean that automation is still a ways away. I produced all the shots for a global diaper company that is on shelf today. The pack designs were a tough format: images needed to be extremely horizontal on one side, and vertical on the reverse. But you can't just ask the photographer to shoot wide and crop in, because the new HD Flexo printing is way more hi-res. The approach at the time was to take the baby imagery and 'paint in' the extra background in Photoshop, a very time-consuming process that had to be repeated for every single image for every single region, with wildly inconsistent results. We created a replica of the on-set nursery in CGI, all the way down to matching the lighting in the C4D studio. Yes it made the process way more flexible, yes we could localize everything with a new render, and yes we could add props or change the decor. But every render required a human eye to match the camera angles/scale of the baby shots. The uncanny valley is real, even with all the little tricks you can do to make it seem more photorealistic. I do like the idea of AI-generated baby faces - the casting process / ethnicity requirements / rights management challenges are real. And maybe it wouldn't be all that bad if everyone knew that the babies weren't human. But the cost to develop and manage that system require real experts, a huge expense for a company that only needs baby shoots every so often. I imagine a version of 'thisbabydoesntexist' and how that would even slot into the content production workflow - it feels impossible. It's much cheaper to outsource this stuff to production companies that are smart about how they capture all the different kinds of content. There are definitely companies where CGI makes sense to develop in-house. IKEA's approach comes to mind since they have super modular and global approach to furniture. But most companies have such a big product turnover that photography is still cheaper. Don't even get me started on hard-to-render products that require serious expertise to visualize. We tried to develop a CGI diaper but wow it was insanely complex. I'm optimistic about the future of the space since there is so much design territory to explore in terms of workflow improvements. But I still love something real - my wife is shooting a story for a national magazine today on a local woodworking artist and I know it could never in a million years be automated. The more that computational photography advances, the more important meatspace photography will become.

justjash 6y ago
This seems like a very difficult way to do things unless you really needed to mess with items in the background. I would think there is still plenty of room to crop a single image down from something like a new Canon 1D. Even just making a composite image if really needed sounds much easier.

crmrc114 6y ago

Can someone on HN explain why some links to medium try to make me setup an account to read while others go to a clean well designed blog style post, the way they should. Is this a setting based on popularity of the article? who is posting?

crazygringo 6y ago
I think it's based on how often you visit Medium. If it's your first time visiting in a ~month, you just see the article. If it's your ~third time, they ask for an account. Just open the URL in an incognito window when you get that -- it's what I do.
recursivecaveat 6y ago
Some medium articles are 'medium exclusive' (I don't remember the exact term). In theory, only people paying for a medium membership can view them, but in return they get a little more juice in medium's internal advertising. Many people inadvertently choose this setting because of some dark patterns around the publishing interface. Everyone gets a couple views of the members-only articles a month free, functionally infinite if you use incognito mode. I think there's also a random pop-up to harass you into using the app/an-account which is orthogonal.

chiffre01 6y ago

I for one hate it when buying something online and the only photos posted are clearly done in a studio with lots of post-processing, or worse renderings. I end up having to look at user posted photos or ebay to see what the item truly looks like.

Wistar 6y ago
There used to be a site that showed the advertising version of a fast-food item versus the reality of that item as delivered to your hand. Dramatic difference.
- johannes1234321 6y ago
  https://youtu.be/oSd0keSj2W8 https://youtu.be/oSd0keSj2W8 here is a McDonald's marketing video on how they improve the burger for the shot. Of course that's marketing and they have other tools in addition, like not using real ingelredients but mocks etc.
  - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    Think the reality of fast food photography has some crossover to the subject, photo studios are less important because you can just take 200 photos with your own camera and then pick the 1 good shot from that. With fast food photography, it's the same ingredients they just brute force it and have a whole stack of genuine buns, pickles, patties to pick the best of a bad bunch.
    - johannes1234321 6y ago
      Even when having the ingredients you have to take care that lights are probably warm and if you aren't quick the salad of your nicely setup burger might lose its structure and color and the sauce and grease might start flowing. But of course: producing good mockups isn't cheap either. In the end it will always have to pick between picking the proper ingredients, some mockups and Photoshop. And as they tell: Point is that one can see what's inside and nobody seriously expects the delivered fast food product to match the picture. (If there's a tomato on the picture however I hope there's a tomato slice somewhere on the real thing)

syntheno 6y ago

Its all really cool technology, and I love the convenience of having a smartphone camera in my pocket, which I use often, for the right type of photography and when no other option is available. But right now you simply cant beat the results of a high end digital camera. The quality simply blows phone cameras out of the water in every conceivable way, even amateurs can tell the difference.

SeanFerree 6y ago

Having a professional photo can make a big difference. I can see how phones and technology has made it so that anyone can take photos. The studio takes a hit because people don't need to go. Much like a music studio. People can record at home, but the professional makes a difference. The internet is a tool to share the photographer's work (if properly branded). The internet has also made a huge supply of photos, so the general demand for quality has declined. Music is much the same. I have a belief that the demand for high quality, professional photos and music will come back in style at some point. It will come back to people happily paying for music or photos as it once was. You can't expect things to be free and also expect quality

imagetic 6y ago

I blame social media and mass low resolution consumption more than I blame smart phones for the shift in the media industry. If I zoom in to almost any cell phone photo, it's no match for a professional with a larger format sensor or studio with lighting. But those details are lost. The appreciation for the craft has also faded. With so much media to create / consume, the bar has lowered across the board. But industries that used to be profitable are hard to break into now. Food photography is a prime example. I recently did a shoot with a company and their chef convinced them they could just use cell phones in the future. I can't argue it. If the only place you're publishing to is 1800px and the content exists for 1-2 days on the front of your feed, it's pretty hard to justify a full crew and big production shoot. You have to really see your media / product as an investment and be gunning for a bigger picture to really gain a value out of a larger media operation.

hownottowrite 6y ago

I’ve run a creative studio as well an an independent photography practice for many years and much of what this article says about the future is true. The main driver here is to reduce costs and increase output by removing the human element. It gets closer each and every day. But at the same time, the high end keeps getting higher and that’s why the photo studio is still going to be around for a long, long time.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

I feel as if we will see fewer, but far better, pro photographers. It will probably be some time before we have AI-assisted composition and lighting, and that's the real secret sauce of high-impact photography. That kind of thing comes from having an emotional being in charge of the photography device. They "feel" the image, as much as they "see" the image, and know how to capture it in a way that will have others feel the power of the image. That is what separates the pros from the amateurs. But those pros now have some truly marvelous tools to help them to capture that emotion. This is like the growth of CGI. When the tools first appeared, they were high geek-factor monsters that only an engineer could use, so only engineers used them, with predictable results. That resulted in some technically marvelous, but not particularly enjoyable, stuff[0]. Then John Lasseter and Pixar happened. Anyone remember the "Luxo Jr." animation?[1] That was where the world changed. For the first time, emotion was reflected in CGI. Nowadays, true artists can do amazing things with tools like Blender, Maya and After Effects. There are now feature-length CGI movies that can have 300-lb cage fighters sobbing in their beer. Until AI can produce emotions (shudder at the thought), there will always be a need for pro emotional craftsmen. The tools and medium may change, but artists have been around since the days of the Maltravieso Gallery. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP2RUD_cL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP2RUD_cL0 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4NPQ8mfKU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4NPQ8mfKU0

VLM 6y ago

Its an interesting tech study but don't forget the business side. I'm so incredibly old (LOL being sarcastic) that I remember high school yearbooks had school photographers for K-11 however seniors had to submit professional photographer pictures. You see it had only been made illegal a generation ago to submit a photo with every resume. In theory, photos were submitted to see if the applicant could clean up and dress in a professional stylish manner. It was made illegal in the 60s for very theoretical discrimination reasons. As if during an interview a manager wouldn't notice an applicant was black or a woman, but via the miracle of photography they could notice, LOL. Anyway culture and especially the ed establishment moves slowly so they were still preparing kids to submit photos with their resumes in the 80s despite it being illegal since the 60s. So seniors had to submit photos. Anyway the whole point of this anecdote is culture moves slow, and until "recently" if you wanted to graduate HS and get a job you needed a zillion copies of yourself from a professional studio. Also see Department of the Army standard "DA photo" for promotion packets, and the peculiar government requirements of passport photos. The days of 50% of the male population having served in the military are long gone with the WWII vets, the population as a whole, countrywide, is getting waaaay too poor to internationally travel thus no need for passports, etc.

cosmodisk 6y ago
It's a bit funny how it's illegal to submit CV with a photo( in most countries,at least) yet the second some HR drone opens your CV, they'd go on LinkedIn or other platforms to check what's going on.
- ido 6y ago
  Submitting CV with a photo is actually an expectation in the German speaking countries!

ruminasean 6y ago

Professional photographer here who does portraits and product. I’d say not “dead,” just very different. We’ve taken a hit, yes, but mostly amongst the problematic clients who say things like “you shot this in 2 hours, why do I need to pay a whole day rate?” They go and shoot their stuff with a phone, it looks like garbage but in some way they can’t quite articulate but it’s good enough, and we’re happy to not have to deal with them any longer. There is another segment, that of the client who bought a consumer crop-sensor DSLR and a white box off of Amazon and told us “hey sorry but anyone can do this now.” Or they picked up a cheap strobe kit and a lens that the blogs said had “creamy bokeh” and they can’t figure out what they’re doing wrong. Generally we see them slink back in a month or so later and quietly hire us back. This is very common. Is the future scary? Yes. Am I sure I’ll be able to work as studio photographer forever? Nope. But as with anything, doing one’s homework and having a commitment to quality while paying attention to what’s happening in the photo world can keep you successful for the time being. The points addressed in the article are good ones and I try to stay up on all of it, but there are plenty of companies who still pay good money for photography don’t have access to the level of digital rendering that he’s talking about. They have a small product and a couple grand and they need a well-done photo in two days. And yes, you can bang out something with a phone and an app or two, but it’s not “there” yet. Is it a privilege to hire a professional photographer for your headshot rather than something someone did on a phone? Of course. I’ve also shot plenty of headshots pro bono for aspiring folks who have a dream and work their asses off and can’t seem to get there, whether or not I was already set up for a paid shoot. My friends mostly do this as well.

52-6F-62 6y ago
Another end of the company I work for (I'm in media operations, digital) is focused on custom content which is largely comprised of marketing materials, catalogs, etc (and they still print on paper!). The company actually maintains a selection modern photo studios solely for use within the company. The clients still want that kind of quality. (There are a couple of glimpses of their large studios in the slides on the homepage https://www.stjoseph.com/ https://www.stjoseph.com/) Of course, I can't speak for the entire industry—but it's not dead yet! At least in the less sexy areas like product shoots for grocery stores, or car promos.

scandox 6y ago

Perhaps slightly OT but nonetheless interesting. I met a former professional photographer who had become an economic analyst. He used to do fashion and music shoots for major magazines (Conde Nast etc..). He gave me an interesting insight into why his former business collapsed. First of all he said that his photography business was predicated on the fact that he held the whip hand with respect to his clients: they needed to be absolutely sure that the person they sent out got the right shots on the day. There wasn't going to be another opportunity to ask Bono or whoever to do them over. So Conde Nast had to be absolutely sure that he would produce the goods. For him to be good enough to be sure of always getting the shots no matter the conditions, weather, light conditions etc...the photographer had to have the requisite experience and the only way traditionally they could get that experience was by using up a lot of film. In his view the cost of the film you would need to go through to have got to his level was approximately £60,000. That was the barrier to entry. With the barrier to entry and with his strong position with respect to his customers he got two important things: a high level of pay and royalties on renewals for his work. So they not only paid him but he had an ongoing revenue for shots they had paid him to take, if they wanted to reuse them over time. Once Digital got good enough, the barrier to entry fell and the magazines slowly gained the upper hand, paid less and didn't agree to the same terms. So now he advises Banks on something or other.