Note: the following post is NOT sponsored. While light.co did ask me to write a feature on technology, they did not pay me or ask me to endorse their product, and having not actually used it yet, this is not something I could do at this point anyway.

Hope you enjoy these thoughts on technology, directed specifically toward photographers and generally toward artists of just about any medium.

I didn't take this picture. But if they give me one of these, I will take a photo of it. If they give me two, I'll take a picture OF it, WITH it.

I recently received an e-mail from a new company called "light", requesting I write a blog post on the topic of technology. (Somehow, this brand name wasn't snatched up decades ago... you'd think after "apple" that the tech field would have just gone out and bought up every single-word company name possible).

"Light" features a product I've heard rumored about for a couple of years now... the kind of technology that creates a revolutionary ripple and polarizes creatives within a field.
The product is the L16 camera, with several nifty features, the flashiest [pun intended] being the ability to adjust focus... AFTER you take the picture.

"The L16, if it is as good as promised, will be as important for photography as the first film camera, the Leica 1, was in 1925" says Financial Times. Whoa. The light.co website flashes quotes from Wired, Petapixel, the Wall Street Journal, and others.

I mean, LOOK at the thing. It takes the same picture with 10 lenses simultaneously, then fuses the images together w/ all the might of it's 52 pixels. It looks like something that aliens brought as a gift to us photog-earth-monkeys.

The inevitable thought: "this changes everything".

Is this the future of camera technology? the ability to not only edit a photo to your liking later, but even alter the depth of field? I could be wrong, but my guess is that in 10 years, we'll see this capability built into the flagship models of nearly every major camera manufacturer.

How do we respond to this? Picture a room full of photographers; veterans, newbs, hipsters, 30 year studio owners. Imagine the automatic response to being shown this kind of technology for the first time.

"YUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS" says I-just-got-a-Canon-rebel-for-Christmas-and-now-I'm-a-photographer, "Focusing is SO hard!"

"I give up. You guys can have the field. There's no such thing as a 'real photographer' anymore." says I-walked-through-miles-in-the-snow-to-get-to-a-darkroom-and-I-liked-it, scooping up all his light meters on his way out the door.

Oh boy.

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One lesson that comes back to me with greater force each time I learn it, is that we can always look to the past to see what's coming in the future- if we know where to look. So what's going to become of photography, based on historical progression in the arts?

My friend Shaun came up with a great theory recently, regarding the explosion of abstract art (and fade of realism) in the mid 20th century. Neither he nor I are dedicated art historians, so of course it's up for debate, but here it is: what if the abstract art movement was actually a reaction to technology?

Imagine you are a painter in the early 1900s. You can do something that the layperson cannot; create realistic images of people, landscapes, and more.

SUDDENLY CAMERA.

"just imagine, gents! Soon these will be small enough to fit in your wagon!"

oh crap. what? Some MACHINE can create images?! some bum (or team of bums, if you're talking the thing pictured above) can just bring this contraption to the wilderness and snap an image w/out hundreds of hours of studies and drawings and layering and painstaking brushstrokes?

Suppose you hung on, and kept painting anyway, or maybe you didn't step into the artist biz til a bit later. Give it few more decades OH CRAP NOW THEY HAVE COLOR AND they've gotten tiny and ANYONE CAN USE ONE OF THESE THINGS?!

Imagine how many portrait and landscape painters began to see their business dry up in the face of this monstrous technology, this "camera box" creating soulless images. How many painters eventually said "screw it, I'm done" and threw their paintbrushes in the trash. Is this a dramatic response? Of course. But are not all of us creatives capable of similar childishness at times? Do we not often fear what we don't know how to adapt to?

Keep in mind, this is not how all artists responded. What would you ask if you were one of those who chose to adapt? "Ok. if that new-fangled-box can do something that I can do... what can I do that it cannot?"

A camera cannot create a Dali. Or a Rothko. Or a Picasso. And according to the theory, would these outstanding abstract artists have emerged (at least as widely) without the "threat" of modern technology to challenge them?

"Let's see you do THIS, camera!" *-I'm sure Salvador Dali said at some point while he was painting this trippiness*

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So here we are, back to MY specific medium... photography. I'm just old enough to say I started with film; I remember what it was like before digital cameras, and I, along with everyone my age and older, have marveled at the increasing accessibility of technology in this field. First the darkroom began to disappear, then the megapixel counts went up, then the low-light capability improved... then 51-point autofocus, cloud-based photoshop, "raw" files that allow you to cheat and change an image you know full well you under-or-over exposed. Then VSCO- literally anyone can slap an engineered mood onto their photograph w/ little thought and substantially improve a mundane image. And yes, I freely admit, the field becomes more and more challenging to both turn a profit and be original. Just with family photos alone, not only does everyone have a "photographer friend" that's just a little (or a lot) cheaper than me, they all have a pretty damn decent camera in their own POCKETS. Am I even needed now?

Now this... this "light" camera... we won't even have to focus anymore? We can just point a camera at something and cheat by focusing it later? Of course that's not really the point of it, but isn't that what we're all thinking?

Here's the thing we need to remember. ALL of us artists, in some sense, are "cheating" according to the past. But the past also reminds us... without change & technological progress, a culture's art can grow stale.

We risk being stale if we do not learn to take an advancement like this, and respond with the right heart. To the darkroom junkies who nudge us to remember what it was like before; yes, we BEGIN lamely if we lean into the progress to an unhealthy degree. The technology both available now and still in development allows laziness as never before, the ability to copy each-other and take momentarily impressive images w/out actually knowing what it's like to earn real mastery. Without the pain and struggle and beauty in dedicating oneself to learning an artistic process and growing within that, we can create beautiful images but we cannot create memorable ones.

Steve McCurry's famous "national geographic" cover image

However, think also of the outstanding work that exists in our culture that would never have come to be without technology made accessible to the right minds. If you have walked and are walking through that genuine artistic process and you enjoy a shock to your system to look at things in a different way, then these advancements may be the right tools to launch you into a new level of creation.

It's also pivotal to remember in the end, it's not about a right or wrong in regards to said tools, it's about what inspires you and how you think best. Think filmmaking. In recent films, Christopher Nolan experimented heavily with an IMAX camera, while Tarantino went old school with 70mm film, as veteran James Cameron went full on modern with digital.

We don't give up when technology convinces us it will take over- technology can never "take over" real art, and real artists can always simply add it to a legitimate mastery. We don't get lazy either. We CREATE, in a way we couldn't before- and whether you're creating with the aid of new technology or without it to show that technology does not equal artistry- either way, if truly inspired, you are making something that the world needs from you.

Because it's you. And there's only one of those. And that needs to progress in some way, too. That's where art comes from.

-Mark

Mark is a commercial and concept photographer based in the midwest. He's made a hobby of analyzing and aiding the artist mind, and frequently collaborates with other creatives. He is best known for his photonovel work. You can take a peek at his work at marknphoto.com, or contact him at hi@marknphoto.com.

TECHNOLOGY ∝ ART