Ian Furniss Photography » Blog Archive

New Dawn Fades

So here we are, April 3rd. The revolution is soon to be upon us, and depending who you listen to, far more likely to bring an end to the world than even anything happening over at CERN! I’m speaking of course about the dawning of The Age of The iPad”. Apple as usual are being particularly mysterious about the price with the only hint at their UK website being that it will be unbelievable. Of that I have no doubt at all!

Now I could have a good rant here about how as far as I can work out the iPad is not likely to bring anything to the table that I want at an acceptable price, but that would be a bit foolish. Why? Because it is (bringing things to the table that is). Tewfic El-Sawy has wise words about the release here on his blog and that’s pretty much where I stand on things too.

What I want to talk about though is that old question of “what comes first, the chicken or the egg?”. Yesterday I was reading a story over at the Luxury Travel Advisor – hey, I can’t afford it .. I was just looking!! It tells of how InterContinental are going to be trialing iPads for the concierges in their hotels. What a great idea! Ok, so I still don’t know how i’m going to visit my flash enabled website or do two things at once buy hey, i’m a bloke. If God had wanted me to multitask he’d have made me female! At least somebody is likely to be getting something that’ll make their working life a bit easier. The one thing that does bug me about the story though, is why oh why has it taken the release of the iPad for InterContinental to come up with this idea?! Surely it could have been done before?

Moving along and what else is on the horizon? CS5 for one thing. Again i’m a bit behind the crowd in all things CS5 but i’ve no doubt that it’ll bring many great new ideas with it and easier ways of doing things. Content Aware Fill seems to be the biggest attention grabber of these and the videos i’ve seen previewing this feature … well .. lets just say I really do wish they hadn’t brought it in. Stealing an image is likely to have never been easier, and then of course there’s the thought that “Wtf?! Now anyone can be a 1337 P|-|0709r4P|-|3r just like me!! one1eleven!”.

Whilst i’m on a roll here, what else don’t I like? In-camera video for one. I’m a photographer not Stephen Spielberg! I’m not even Guy Ritchie so what on earth do I want in-camera video for?! Well, it would make tutorials a bit easier and perhaps add a little something to a slideshow .. but why let ideas get in the way of a good rant!?! I’m enjoying myself being miserable!

Ok, so I don’t like in-camera video, i’m probably going to loathe the iPad, and content-aware-fill is likely to leave me wondering why I bother trying to get things right in camera. Is it the end of the world? No. In actual fact it’s more likely to be the opposite. Quite a few years ago somebody invented fire and just as likely, somebody else thought “I wish they hadn’t done that. There goes my cave and before you know it i’ll be claiming on the insurance”. We still have fire. It’s not going away, and nor is anything else that manufacturers and the media tell us we have to buy in order to make our lives complete.

It’s no use sitting moaning about it, these products are coming and we have to deal with that. The iPad may not be offering me the things I want, but it does appear to have kick started many others and inspired what in turn will most surely bring about new versions and competitor products that do give me what I want. Video? As I say, I have no desire to suddenly start trying to become the next Steven Spielberg. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways to use video that will work for me. I can use it for tutorials, to advertise workshops, to promote portfolios, enhance slideshows, whatever my mind can think of. Video won’t destroy photography any more than photography destroyed painting or drawing.

Give it a year or two and I imagine we’ll look back and wonder what all the fuss was about. Until then? Have a good rant, then get to thinking of ways all these new ideas and inventions can help you. If you aren’t, you can be sure your competitors will.