22/03/2023
DPReview is closing shop after 25 years. It seems to be more sorted and popular than ever before, yet the top brass decided that changing a winning recipe is so last year. Instead, they have decided to not change it but cancel it altogether.
The forums have been a particularly useful source of nerdy input, banter and answers to niche questions / problems. The content, news on current developments and new gear, not to mention the video reviews have become a staple for many to stay up to date and informed about the latest and greatest in the world of photography.
Because their announcement is aloof at best, it leads us to speculate and draw our own conclusions.
Here are my own ramblings on the matter:
1) photography as a profession has been in a decline for years now. As a hobby is is still quite popular, but i’m seeing FAR less tourists with big camera bags and multiple lenses. Privacy laws and issues with security guards aside, more and more people are using mobile phones to shoot the bulk of their snaps… and the phones are pretty good to be honest, for most everyday applications at least, and there are some things that phones do better than regular cameras. Add to this the dimension of computational photography, and image making for the masses is now solidly in the realm of the mobile phone.
2) AI is getting a lot better pretty quickly. When they sort out weirdnesses like 7-fingered hands, making epic images almost from scratch will not require much in terms of owning a camera.
3) platforms like youtube, instagram, TikTok and Snapchat are doing far better than Flickr, smugmug, 500px, and Instagram. Notice that i mentioned Instagram doing better and worse... what i mean is that former Instagram algorithm is not the same as current Instagram, which favors video content over stills. Statuses and stories are more entertaining than quality stills. It is after all not about showcasing and encouraging quality content, but ultimately about holding your attention for as long as possible and mixing ing some overt advertising, or covert agendas, favoring some content and behaviors and opinions, and “regulating” or discouraging others that dont fir the narrative and might erode profitability.
4) fewer and fewer people care about good stills. In the same way that fewer and fewer people care about discerning quality and the motivation of the creative mind. The latest thing is the coolest and therefore better seems to be the type of pseudo logic that goes around. Perhaps this is good. Most so-called influencers have been uncovered as not being that influential after all.
5) the global financial situation is not favorable for lavish spending on expensive upgrades every two or three years, which photographic companies all want us to do. There is always new gear to lust after, but fewer and fewer people can justify spending on more camera gear. Perhaps serious amateur photographers are also coming around to the idea that more and or better gear is no guarantee for better photos. Investing in time to practice and in training is far more of an investment.
6) If a resource like DPReview, were to be locked up, perhaps the powers that be revised it could be shifted into a subscription model, like amazon prime, Netflix etc for which enough people are willing to pay a nominal fee with added benefits that reach wider than just the one subscription into one resource. Who knows. This is pure speculation but if I were more someone driven by profit and in the power seat, this might not seem like to much of a stretch of the imagination. My guess is that DP review won’t disappear. But it will be shifted, perhaps slightly rebranded etc. to become an offering under a greater umbrella of non-free content.
7) I’ve seen trends to make the idea of free information on the internet less and less free either by monitising content, or by regulating contributors. I’m not sure if this is the place for a good conspiracy theory, but it could easily be. lets sidestep that for now and just call it a matter of profitability and returns on investments having reached a tipping point combined with where the photographic industry as a whole finds itself. Lets be honest. The upgrades and changes to hardware is minor at best. Within the small % of full time professionals, there is and even smaller % of shooters that actually know how to use all the settings and features of the amazing technology they carry in their camera bags. For those, the incremental changes are fantastic. For everyone else, the previous model camera and lens and filter and tripod and flash still does a stellar job of capturing the moment, framing the scene, eternalising meories and shooting the majority of work for clients who would rather save some money on and ever shrinking marketing budget (they don’t care or aren’t able to spot the difference between images from a 100 megapixel vs 24 megapixel camera…vs film!)
8 ) more and more people are realizing that less is more and the latest greatest gear wont provide us with more happiness. We dont need cabinets full of gear for every possible occasion. We dont need infinite power in flashes, we dont need terabytes upon terabytes of harddrive space - this is certainly the case for me at least… thanks Covid! We just enough to backup the essentials, and that is far less than one might imagine. Perhaps we are in a process of recalibrating towards contentment, getting more into the motivation and the art of creating, of engaging with art. People are getting more and more tired of being advertised to, being lied to and being overly invested in so called social media that is getting more and more anti-social by the day. It is OK that people dont know every move we make, every place we go, every unfiltered thought we have.
If the internet were to suddenly fall appart due to a solar flair or whatever, no one would miss DPReview. There would be much bigger problems to navigate. So if we were to take a big picture view of where things stand, I would say invest in relationships and enriched experiences. If that means sometimes buying gear, so be it.
So i guess, DPReview bosses are ushering in a new era by marking a change in the industry, of perhaps they simply found a way to make more money out of the same stuff. Time will tell.
For now, I’d say use the gear you have, make friends that have different experiences and some commonality. Get out from behind the computers and get fresh air, buy less gear, and in stead go out and look, experience, think, converse, debate, relate and integrate into society. This leads to a far better experience of being human than the isolation that endless hours in front of a screen can ever offer.
OK, rant over. I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts on the matter, and on the points raised above. Perhaps i have it all wrong. After all, what do I know in any case, hey?
DPReview
![Sometimes, photographers aren’t [the only ones] to blame...](https://img3.photography1000.com/709/157/650345357091573.jpg)
