Year End Predictions

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 30. December 2008 - 0:00

It's almost the end of December 2008. The New Year is coming. Everybody, their dog and cat, is predicting what will happen next year. So it's also my time to make my photo predictions.

But like all photographers, I am somewhat of a procrastinator. So I will predict what happened for 2008. Hindsight is 20/20 and that way, I am always 100% right.

  • 2008 has been a year of upheavals. The financial crisis, my business crisis: my 2 largest customers are gone. One moved and the other one significantly shrunk i.e.: layoffs, to stay away from bankruptcy. I saw it coming, but I wasn't ready for when it came, 3 more month and I would have been ready.
  • 2008 has forced me to reconsider my photography business. I will be expanding in completely new directions.
  • I spoke for years of expanding in new directions, I have started.
  • 2008 has consolidated the stranglehold of digital. Up to 2007, people were discussing the pros and cons of digital vs. film. Film is crushed, gone. I don't think that there is an SLR film manufacturer left. The same thing happened with the medium format cameras.
  • Adobe's Lightroom & Apple's Aperture dominate, or should I say crush, the DAM[2][2] field.
  • The renaissance of the full frame DSLR, started in late 2007. There now 7 full frame cameras with three full systems.
  • The insane resolutions from the medium format cameras: 50 to 60 Mega pixels from Aptus & Leaf.
  • Nothing has changed to the basics. I still need to meet people, do the "sales pitch", deliver the photos and sell some more.
  • Nothing has changed to my business. I still need to invoice customers, track the payables and the receivables to make sure that I get paid and stay in business.
  • Nothing has changed in customer service. Lousy customer service means no repeat customer.
  • Nothing has changed with lenses. A good lens is still very expensive. A great lens is very rare.
  • Nothing has changed with photographers. A good photographer makes excellent photos. A lousy photographer takes lousy photos.
  • Nothing has changed with buyers. Some buyers are so cheap that they won't even pay $1 for the license of a photo: Photoshop Disasters and are so stupid that they forget to remove the iStockPhoto logo.
  • Nothing has changed with photographers who whine and complain about all these "amateurs" that steal their job by under-cutting them.

Prediction for 2009

  • Lens resolution will be a big problem. Very few lenses can resolve 21 or 24 Mega pixels. How many lenses will resolve 32Mp, 48Mp or even 60Mp?
  • There is a Chinese proverb or curse, depending on how you look at it:

May you live in interesting times.

2009 will be a very interesting time. Wars, famine, starvation, recession, and opportunities but there will be also many small miracles that will keep us going along.