Creative Destruction and Imagery
The possible death of photography as we know it
Recently, I listened to Seth Godin’s podcast episode on Creative Destruction. Creative Destruction, a term coined by Joseph Schumpeter, refers to the disruption of whole industries through new business offerings and technologies. Somehow I missed understanding this term despite being in a program eight years ago at the University of Toronto called Creative Destruction Lab (CDL). (queue face palm) I wasn’t in the program for long but it was an interesting experience.
Seth brings photography as an example of how innovation disrupts the generation of offering before it. In his example, Seth starts with the camera, then the polaroid, and then the digital camera, but we can probably get more resolution (pun intended) and extend the timeline.
In a few more steps:
- Cave paintings with charcoal and dirt
- Objects formed from material to resemble people and animals
- Animal hide, bark, papyrus and crude paper with various materials.
- Oil paintings
- First black and white photos
- Color photos
- Non-professional cameras
- Polaroid and one-hour photo developing
- Digital cameras
- Cellphones
Now where are we going to go? Is there any room for another creative destruction of cellphone photos? Is it AR? VR? Life holograms?
Probably none of these but something different. The next imagery will be of us but will never have taken place. We already have cameras that enhance our beauty in photos. The next tech may mean we may never have to take that photo again.
Your phone will look at your location history, your activity, and the clothes you’ve worn in previous photos or ordered online and will create the images of you as you want. You’ll look your best in them and just like red eye in photos is a thing of the past, so will be zits and wrinkles and untucked shirts.
Google’s Magic Eraser is already doing this for photo bombers but the next version of Google Photos may be deep faked photos of ourselves based on our activities during the day.
You took a walk with your family next to the Eiffel Tower? here’s what it might have looked like — except perfect.
Maybe this will be the slow end of photography. At the very least, it will change how and what we decide to photograph with our phones.
