The future of photography blogs. What's next?

It's almost like the joy of discussing new gear and new techniques has been wholly replaced on most of our photo blogs by personal observations about day-to-day routines, life's struggles, diets, and photo walks. When blogs first appeared we were still, to some degree, transitioning from film to digital. From known processes to new realms of imaging that demanded a different processes and, to a certain degree, new skill sets. Darkroom work was quickly giving way to working with Photoshop and outputting images to paper via inkjet printers. And inkjet printers were hardly foolproof and there was much we could learn from photographers who ventured into the inkjet realm before the rest of us. They'd already bled out tons of money on ink and papers and calibration and we could learn and profit from their honest accounting of their triumphs and failures. And they mostly conveyed this knowledge on blogs. 

By my read digital became mature, both for inkjet printers and cameras by around 2010 but the demand for good blogs about the hyper-quickly changing introduction of new cameras models was still going full blast. A blog was also a great place to market things like books, workshops and, eventually, presets for post processing images. Hobbyists and working photographers without access to bricks and mortar camera stores, locally, depended on blog writers to supplement the cheery "no bad cameras" crews at the major, for profit sites with a bit of honest critiquing. 

Still, even as late as 2013 photographers saw value in the writing on blogs about our industry space, about new trends in photography; especially as it became a hybrid practice that started incorporating more and more video. We writers who were also photographers tried to deliver information as well as proof of concept. We bloggers, at least some of us, actually bought the cameras and used them for more than a couple of weeks and then reported what we'd found out. Sometimes posting about a single camera serially, squeezing as much experience as we could from the gear. And then sharing it. Some of us without considering any financial reward.

From 2015 onward the introduction of new cameras started to decline or decelerate. The decline was slow at first but constantly tumbling. And, after years and years of writing about processes, lens evaluations and value propositions of various camera types we capitulated to the onslaught of "camera reviews as entertainment" delivered by YouTube. A completely different, much stickier medium than the static blogs. 

And with YouTube in daily ascendancy blogs began a steady decline in readership, audience interest and, for those who depended on them for financial reward, also income. Blog writers and blog readers aged together until we hit a point where the writers and the readers were equally well informed, from multiple sources,  when it came to tech fluff and other stuff. You could read long reviews of cameras on the review sites which were dedicated to providing that kind of content. The one thing blogs by professional photographers like myself could still deliver was descriptions of how we used various lights and cameras in actual, paying, commercial jobs. We helped deflate the expectation that the latest gear was required by clients for everything. We helped readers understand the value of good practice over the latest acquisitions. We still delivered some value related to the process of photography. And we helped support the mythology that photography was an important and unchanging part of our culture. 

But then the pandemic blew everything up. And the last two years of supply side disruptions along with the realization that nothing much has changed, qualitatively, in the previous three or four years at the core of digital cameras so we ended up with fewer and less interesting work projects to discuss and fewer and less interesting cameras to review or discuss. 

And photo bloggers have been running out of things to sell. There are no real workshops to tout anymore. They still exist but the workshop owners don't need to pay third party bloggers anymore to generate interest and participants. No one needs to buy presets for post processing now that hundreds of presets come for free in Adobe Lightroom. Good luck with making money from affiliate links in a market situation where no one can get their hands on new products because of backorders and limited production runs. And the worst part of it all for bloggers is that the information comes fast and furious and in a very much more entertaining fashion via well produced videos on YouTube. And YouTube, like it or not, is where the makers of cameras are now sending the bulk of their "review" cameras first. The video influencers always have a head start.

Now the few readers who have hung on can read about my swimming practices, the weather in Austin, or how I used a camera on my walk that yielded results that are not demonstrably different from any other camera I've taken along for a walk in the past. Or, they can read about medical issues and keyboard products at Mike's site, with a sprinkling of articles about how things used to work in the "good old days." And then you can bounce back over here to read more about the weather and which lens purchase of the day was motivated by boredom, and mostly intellectual lethargy.  In a year or so all the web/print based blogs will largely vanish. People will tire of reading about which brand of preserves I like with my toast. And which kind of toast I like with my jam. And about coffee. And Mike will be busy reviewing a half dozen electric toasters to see which one is head and shoulders above the rest --- without being Veblen. And he'll probably hold an audience longer... 

Actors like to talk about going out "on top." Meaning at the very top of their game. At the Zenith of their popularity. But I guess I missed the boat on that. 

I still love to take photographs. I like to talk about life but I'm reticent to make any waves so I don't get to rail and rant about money, religion, politics or anything else that's frictional but fun. I love using new cameras but the cameras that are new to me lately are 12+ years old and have been reviewed to death. 

I could write about jobs but we're not doing anything new and different as far as techniques go, so what's the point? No one needs to read about an event job I'm doing for bankers in April. The curious can go back into the VSL archives and find basically the same article from years past. Maybe just substitute different camera brands to make it contemporary. 

I think my first 2500 blog posts were pretty good but boy-oh-boy has the second 2500 been repetitious and boring. "I selected a camera and lens. I walked around. I shot this skyline, this mannequin, this building....I came home and looked at the files. They were good." 

A sad thing about my readers getting older (as am I) is that they/you all remember when houses cost $80,000 and you could get a nice car for $6,000. A hamburger cost less than a dollar. A lot less. Cameras were something you had to save up for and sweat about before you handed over what was, in the earlier days, a big handful of cash. And we carry these memories with us and they pollute our understanding of current values and current finances re: cameras, and everything else, which makes us sound miserly and out of touch. Every new product announcement is met with a certain amount of hand-wringing about the costs. Now people will gladly spend forty, fifty or sixty thousand dollars on a shitty SUV but whine when camera prices go up a couple hundred dollars due to inflation. 

We've collectively turned into a group that wants everything to stay the same, and we want everything at a bargain price, and this stunts our appreciation for completely new and different gear. And the pleasure of experimenting. I know, I know, you love your Speed Graphic and your Minolta SRT201. You never feel the need to upgrade from your first digital camera purchase. You think gear is overrated. Which begs the question: why are you here?

And, the constant reference to price, and critique of prices, is as tiresome as watching a group of self proclaimed "old people" haggling at a restaurant about how to split the check four ways, and "who had the extra diet Coke?" Stuff cost more now. And surprise, you are pulling in more money, statistically, than you probably ever had before. And your kids are through college and your houses are paid for..... but you grimace over the price of a Q3 or a top line Sony. It takes a lot of joy out of the transaction of me writing and you reading and commenting. But at least when you are complaining you are commenting.

The blog can be fun to write. And if you want to pretend that it builds a community you can tell yourself that. Although I've only met and corresponded with a tiny % of you. The 1%? 

I'm going to keep blogging for a while more. But they'll be short on writing and accompanied by an embarrassingly large number of images. That's what everyone tells me really counts. The images. I guess I've basically run out of interesting things to say about cameras and lenses and processes. Just an honest assessment of where everything is right now. Photography has changed from a valid, freestanding art form to something more akin to quick but impermanent performance art hits.

I thought it might just be me but I checked in with my favorite twenty-eight year old data scientist and he concurred that blogs are a dying "art form." I'd hate to be the last one out. The guy tasked to turn out the lights...