Impending Revolution
Nikon D90, © Chase Jarvis
In the past six years the world of photography has made tremendous leaps with its various forms of digital cameras. In the future, I imagine, we will look back on today as a milestone. Nikon has announced the release of the D90. All basic specifications aside, the most important aspect of this new camera is its ability to capture high-definition 720p video. Lately, from what I have gathered, everyone from photo editors to journalists and fine art to commercial photographers are wondering what direction photography and the media are heading. We’re facing an era where print media is slowly becoming obsolete as the Internet opens new doors, and professional photographers are looking on in uncertainty as the average consumer becomes the owner of a semi-professional digital SLR. There is a lot of speculation on the subject, and seemingly very few answers to the larger questions. This can be attributed to the fact that many companies are developing software that has untapped potential and there’s no telling what the general populace will do with it once it is at their fingertips. Microsoft is making leaps and bounds to take all of the millions of photographs uploaded to the Internet and amass them into a single place where the photographs become less of a flat image and more of a window into the landscape in which they were taken. The software, known as Photosynth, can be seen in a demo video here.
Gigapan
In a similar direction, I had the pleasure of watching Illah Nourbakhsh, a professor in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, demonstrate one of their machines known as the Gigapan. This little device takes an everyday digital camera and maxes out the zoom as it pans around the room and then couples with software that stitches all of these photographs together, creating an enormous panorama (a gigapixel image). You can explore these gigapixel images here. These new twists on what used to be a straightforward practice have people asking, Is Photography Dead? In the article Plagens states, “The next great photographers—if there are to be any—will have to find a way to reclaim photography’s special link to reality. And they’ll have to do it in a brand-new way.” This brand-new way will undoubtedly spring up from the myriad of new processes brought about by all of this evolutionary technology.
Iraq Kurdistan, Mediastorm, © Ed Kashi
One of the most poignant for me in recent memory is the way the people working with MediaStorm have managed to combine stop-motion animation with stills, video, and audio, to create extremely compelling narratives. Since this discovery I’ve found myself more interested in the potential for the combination of video and still photography and, at long last, Nikon has made the combination a comprehensible possibility. The camera, for one, is inexpensive ($999). But most importantly, the photographer will not feel out of their element while experimenting with video. All the tools needed are now housed in a single place. Although, from watching the videos, the camera is not foolproof. There is no autofocus and I would imagine the audiopickup is less than spectacular. Nonetheless, for those looking to experiment (i.e. me) this is a hint at what is to come and provides an easy outlet for testing the waters of the cinematic practice. Now, if only Canon would hop on the bandwagon.
P.S. Here is a video of Chase Jarvis testing out the camera:
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