RDKirk wrote:
My sales of large wall portraits are not flagging, either.

As I always say: Homo sapiens has loved big pictures on her walls for as long as homo sapiens has had walls. That's not going to disappear in our lifetimes.

chez wrote:
But isn't a big LCD wrapped in a beautiful frame a big picture as well that allows the flexibility of changing the picture without having to frame another photo? After all, it is just another display medium much like canvas, metal prints, textured matte, high super gloss etc... The end result is still a photo hanging on the wall.

Peter Le wrote:
Yes chez it is.......so maybe some wealthier customers will have one large LED with changing images in one room.....maybe........but do you really think they will have LED's in every room at different sizes and multiple ones on one wall in different sizes to match their decor . Come on man do you really think that will happen in the next 50 years. Like I said my print sales have not dropped off at all and large sizes are increacing at a very pleasing rate.


Next 50? It's happening right now. Just hang out with some millionaires. I know a few. The lifestyle in that clip is already here for them. With $200 24" LCDs which cost only about $10 a month to run 24/7 I guess it will be here for the middle-middle-classes in the next few years. Everything shown in the OP's video is already here and available if you have the bucks. While I haven't seen a dressing-room mirror do that yet I've been in people's homes where any one of those other things were installed and operating. If the USA and other British states, weren't so class-segregated likely most or at lest many of you-all would have seen these things as well.

I have 12 interactive glass surfaces in my home and 3 in my car - and I'm just a poorer-than-dirt ancient old fool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38 Check it out on just a mass consumer level.

I guess I will be able to sell limited edition jpegs, and instead of selling nicely framed prints, I could sell the jpegs in a nice 20x30 digital screen of some kind. I would want to lock the digital screen to just my limited edition jpeg. Once images start to change on a screen they become tacky screensaver slideshows that only the photographer would pay any attention to.

Sal

This op must be a young fellow who is cluless about art. While many consumers don't want prints, paper prints, like sculpture and paintings will always be around. Yes, there is glass in art galleries,but they won't be throwing out the other media soon. People will always want to OWN art, and I, for one, would not care to live in such a sterile Brave New World, that you project to be our future.

After hearing this worrying news I went to the prints in my living room. I poked them, pinched them, even yelled at them but I saw no movement! I must announce with sadness that they are indeed all dead already

curious80 wrote:
After hearing this worrying news I went to the prints in my living room. I poked them, pinched them, even yelled at them but I saw no movement! I must announce with sadness that they are indeed all dead already

jim allison wrote:
This op must be a young fellow who is cluless about art. While many consumers don't want prints, paper prints, like sculpture and paintings will always be around. Yes, there is glass in art galleries,but they won't be throwing out the other media soon. People will always want to OWN art, and I, for one, would not care to live in such a sterile Brave New World, that you project to be our future.


Yes, but art is just one small segment of the print market. Look at any home and you'll see way more portraits hanging around than artistic photos. Sure, art will still exist...but in a very small niche market.

Chrissearle wrote:
Theres still plenty of demand for vinyl. When my sons band records an album they always print a few hundred vinyls and sell out almost immediately. People have replace CDs with streaming but demand for vinyl is actually growing.

+1 There are more turntable and tone arm manufacturers today than during the heyday of vinyl records. There is a plethora of tube audio equipment even when we all "know" digital is way better.

Is the photographic printer market shrinking and drying up? Is it difficult to find quality photographic paper to make prints? Like those who appreciate music reproduced from vinyl and analog sources, good prints will continue to thrive.

chez wrote:
jim allison wrote:
This op must be a young fellow who is cluless about art. While many consumers don't want prints, paper prints, like sculpture and paintings will always be around. Yes, there is glass in art galleries,but they won't be throwing out the other media soon. People will always want to OWN art, and I, for one, would not care to live in such a sterile Brave New World, that you project to be our future.


Yes, but art is just one small segment of the print market. Look at any home and you'll see way more portraits hanging around than artistic photos. Sure, art will still exist...but in a very small niche market.

It must depend on where you live. Any homes I look at have art in frames on the walls in living rooms and dining rooms. Portraits are usually clumped together in one hallway leading to a bedroom, or in small frames with other snapshots on pianos and fireplace mantels.

Real art has always has always existed as a niche market. Everyone else wants something that looks like their idea of real art but at an affordable price.

Sal

Back in the day a inexpensive poster of "Farrah Fawcett" was considered high art by most men and millions displayed them proudly.

jim allison wrote:
This op must be a young fellow who is cluless about art. While many consumers don't want prints, paper prints, like sculpture and paintings will always be around. Yes, there is glass in art galleries,but they won't be throwing out the other media soon. People will always want to OWN art, and I, for one, would not care to live in such a sterile Brave New World, that you project to be our future.

chez wrote:
Yes, but art is just one small segment of the print market. Look at any home and you'll see way more portraits hanging around than artistic photos. Sure, art will still exist...but in a very small niche market.


Well photography is photography. What art there is to the images we produce is neither increased nor decreased via the display medium. Prints have limitations. Electronic displays have limitations. Either are suited to different environments - with overlap of course. If Corning indeed eventually comes up with a product which installs like wall-paper and is low cost, the walls it's installed on will probably not have printed media or paintings hung on them. But not all walls of all rooms in a house will be like that (I would hope). I for one don't expect the printed media market to shrink at all because of this. Just like electronic CRT devices actually increased the amount of paper used on the planet (by orders of magnitude I might add). And then just as now, people said it would kill the printing industries. It killed some forms of News distribution but more /changed the face of them/ than actually killed them. And in the process News and actually the entire printing-on-paper and printing in general, industry was massively diversified and localized in a way that probably couldn't or wouldn't have happened otherwise.

In the same way I don't ever see these interactive surfaces killing printed art media. If anything the marketeers will move in with services like one-touch purchase-printing and when John Q. Public sees an image on his glass wall he thinks his sister or wife might appreciate hanging in another room - boom there it is - printed by you and shipped to them next-day-air. For home users and such, these devices will remain a style or fashion choice along side their utilitarian aspects and will never /replace/ traditional art - I guess they will probably only serve to enhance traditional media markets by increasing distribution and exposure. Think about it. Have you sold any prints over the net? How were they advertised, selected, and paid for? Now imagine people didn't need to sit in front of a computer and /navigate/ in order to be exposed to your work. Imagine your images were being displayed at buss-stops, in malls, at the BB in supermarkets, in the interactive ad space of the wanted and FS section of those flexi-screen (digital paper) things you saw in the videos. Do you think that would increase or decrease the amount of people ordering prints from you?

Also I think the OP chose the word "dead" for the title of this thread unwisely but I wouldn't go so far as to think him young and stupid for it as some others have suggested. By now we have all surely learned not to judge a thread by its title, right?



--

WAYCOOL wrote:
Back in the day a inexpensive poster of "Farrah Fawcett" was considered high art by most men and millions displayed them proudly.

And still do today, although it's no longer Farrah... Now it's a skate-punk hero, a band, game, or a movie poster! And the number of people who have them on their walls has increased massively!

-- Just saying - in confirmation of what (I think) your point is... (we mostly define what art is on a personal/individual level.)

Try viewing digital screens without electricity.
All are in danger of EMP damage as well as major Solar storms such as hit in 1859 and caused fires in telegraph offices.

Nothing is perfect.

The downside of electronic images is that few will find an old shoebox in an attic in 60 years and thumb through the images of Gramma and Grampa when they were young. Find the discs they were saved on and hope someone, somewhere has the technology to open them.

Remember Bernoulli discs and the floppy disc? We still have glass plates, tintypes, B&W silver prints, carbon and pt/pd. Cared for they do last. Digital media loses information just sitting.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Polytron-Technologies-Transparent-Smartphone-Release-Date-Pictures,20766.html

Daniel Smith wrote:
Try viewing digital screens without electricity.
All are in danger of EMP damage as well as major Solar storms such as hit in 1859 and caused fires in telegraph offices.

Nothing is perfect.

The downside of electronic images is that few will find an old shoebox in an attic in 60 years and thumb through the images of Gramma and Grampa when they were young. Find the discs they were saved on and hope someone, somewhere has the technology to open them.

Remember Bernoulli discs and the floppy disc? We still have glass plates, tintypes, B&W silver prints, carbon and pt/pd. Cared for they do last. Digital media loses information just sitting.

I posted this earlier in the thread, a wonderful video of that point:

Lost Memories
http://vimeo.com/49425975

I just want to pee. Not respond to messages. Unless the messages are in in the bowl. Your 8:30 meeting is not welcome in my bathroom.

I don't have worry about my printed images getting damaged by a corrupted file or virus.

Limited edition, signed and numbered thumb drives. Now we're talking!

Sal

Daniel Smith wrote:
Try viewing digital screens without electricity.
All are in danger of EMP damage as well as major Solar storms such as hit in 1859 and caused fires in telegraph offices.

Nothing is perfect.

The downside of electronic images is that few will find an old shoebox in an attic in 60 years and thumb through the images of Gramma and Grampa when they were young. Find the discs they were saved on and hope someone, somewhere has the technology to open them.

Remember Bernoulli discs and the floppy disc? We still have glass plates, tintypes, B&W silver prints, carbon and pt/pd. Cared for they do last. Digital media loses information just sitting.

And the biggest problem with a print is it fades, is prone to humidity, smudges, dirt etc...

My wedding photos have faded badly. If they were digital, they would display like new.

chez wrote:
Daniel Smith wrote:
Try viewing digital screens without electricity.
All are in danger of EMP damage as well as major Solar storms such as hit in 1859 and caused fires in telegraph offices.

Nothing is perfect.

The downside of electronic images is that few will find an old shoebox in an attic in 60 years and thumb through the images of Gramma and Grampa when they were young. Find the discs they were saved on and hope someone, somewhere has the technology to open them.

Remember Bernoulli discs and the floppy disc? We still have glass plates, tintypes, B&W silver prints, carbon and pt/pd. Cared for they do last. Digital media loses information just sitting.

And the biggest problem with a print is it fades, is prone to humidity, smudges, dirt etc...

My wedding photos have faded badly. If they were digital, they would display like new.

I'm going to presume your wedding photos have faded at about the same rate as usual for photos in an album--that it's taken about twenty years to have "faded badly."

Let's see...if you'd taken them on the digital media of twenty years ago....

chez wrote:
Daniel Smith wrote:
Try viewing digital screens without electricity.
All are in danger of EMP damage as well as major Solar storms such as hit in 1859 and caused fires in telegraph offices.

Nothing is perfect.

The downside of electronic images is that few will find an old shoebox in an attic in 60 years and thumb through the images of Gramma and Grampa when they were young. Find the discs they were saved on and hope someone, somewhere has the technology to open them.

Remember Bernoulli discs and the floppy disc? We still have glass plates, tintypes, B&W silver prints, carbon and pt/pd. Cared for they do last. Digital media loses information just sitting.

And the biggest problem with a print is it fades, is prone to humidity, smudges, dirt etc...

My wedding photos have faded badly. If they were digital, they would display like new.

Make another print?

Sal

I guess the point that I was trying to make and didn't express well, is that people will always want to OWN Art.The technology will also evolve to make prints permanent.I can look at
Elliot Porter or other great artists photos on my screen, but if I could to afford one of his die
transfer prints, I would prefer to do so. It would also be an excellent investment. An Ansel Adams print of Moon over Hernandez New Mexico, made by the artist, is worth what I would consider to be a fortune. I agree that digital media is another, if you will, more democratic form of expression that can enhance the lives of both the viewer and the artist, but I believe it to be sterile and less impactfull as a good print of a still image.Art is in the eye...but it is also what's in the heart and that is what's in mine