Smile when you say that, pardner...
Unfortunately the man who said it to me this week wasn't smiling - he was glum because he felt that his expertise in the photographic business was being eroded by the new technologies. He was becoming discouraged.
He really shouldn't have been. He has top-notch gear himself and a wealth of experience. He has a name. And he is still young enough to remember it without looking at a name tag pinned to his collar...
While there is life there is hope. If he finds younger photographers grasping at areas he had to himself formerly...well that will be the case forever. Those young photographers will also have to do things that he would be frantic to avoid, and that is their punishment. God knows I have ventured into some of these events and now have learned my lesson.
It is inevitable that the dumbing-down of any art form or technical skill will meet eventually with the level of the unskilled worker. We saw it with the film era - the same shop that sold the Leica M3 sold the Kodak Retina and one lot of people bought one thing and one lot of people bought another - they both went to the film cabinet and got 35mm film cassettes. But their pathways diverged from there.
The paying clients in the end knew that the man using the Leica was going to do the job - the man using the Retina could please himself but was not going to be required to please others. They hired the Leica man.
They will hire the skilled chap I saw earlier this week - if he remains confident. And smiles.
