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Photographers, You're Being Replaced By Software
Mrs. Grundy writes "CGI software, even open-source software like Blender, continues to improve in quality, speed and ease-of-use. Photographer Mark Meyer wonders how long it will be before large segments of the photography industry are replaced by software and become the latest casualty to fall to outsourcing. Some imagery once the domain of photographers has already moved to CGI. Is any segment of the photography market safe? Will we soon accept digital renderings in places where we used to expect photographs?"
CGI has a LONG way to go before it can replace a good photograph. A well-composed, well-lit photograph can say more than most 3D animations ever could. And a photo is a lot easier and cheaper to produce. Who is going to pay a team of digital artists $100 an hour to create a 3D model of something when you can just tell Jimmy Olsen to go take a picture of it for a pittance?
The software to do 3D may be getting easier and cheaper. But good 3D artists aren't. And a single picture of a wounded, crying girl in Syria will always have a helluva lot more power than any 3D rendering of the deployment of Syrian forces. Photography isn't going all-CGI any more than movies are.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I know that when I get married, I won't be hiring a photographer. Instead I'll hire Pixar to make a 15 minute short commemorating the occasion.
Not to be semantic, but this is not outsourcing. Outsourcing would suggest that they'd hire a photographer overseas to do the job at a lower rate. This is elimination of the job by technological advance (not sure if there is a buzzword synonym or not).
Agreed. Why do people feel the need to be anxious? It's just not necessary. Besides, what really matters is composition. And as crazy has already noted, this really only applies to heavily composed photography, not spontaneous. So, yeah, stock photographers might need to be on the lookout, but photojournalists? Not so much.
"Everyone: You're Being Replaced By Software"
From the and-by-small-purpose-built-robots dept.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
It's just a matter of time... At the moment it's easier to get a real pic and edit but when you have a library of objects to choose that are all customisable then it's just a matter of rendering... getting a good program to identify the textures and boundary's and fill in the detail. I think we do still need a leap in processing power before this is truly viable.
No it is not, Yes we will.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
do you know how long it takes to make a photorealistic sneaker, motorcycle or wristwatch in blender? now compare that with how long it takes to take a picture of a sneaker, motorcycle or wristwatch with a camera....
it will dilute the existing pool of photographs while making those photographs taken by a human all the more valuable. in fact this is true for a majority of what happens with technology. a tradtional task performed by a human is computerized, and the original ttadtion becomes more valuable. so this is a non-story.
So... visual stimuli to replace.... visual stimuli! No reason why it shouldn't. The only situation where I can see rendered images not "beating" photography are situational photography (those unique shots taken at the right time, with the right angle that portraits REAL and profound situations summarized in a single shot) because a render will be a rough extrapolation while the photography freezes a real moment. Else, can't see why a visual stimuli can't replace another and similar visual stimuli.
thought they would be replaced by photographers.
But it won't be by expensive graphic artists using 3D modeling software.
The replacement for the "photographer" will be a camera operator. The camera operator will use off the shelf click and shoot hardware and idiot proof processing software. The camera operator might be an intern, a secretary, or even a marketroid who needs to know nothing about the art of photography but can envision how he wants the image to appear. Outside the workplace, the operator might be a wedding guest or a fellow parent at a graduation.
We're entering an era in which the creation of stunning, quality images will not be the exclusive domain of "photographers" with four year degrees and the need to pay off that $100k in student loans. Much of the photography curriculum has shifted from technical knowledge to borderline pretentious composition.
When everyone carries a high quality camera in their pocket, and can use a wizard interface to post-process photos, there won't be much need for trained "photographers" who spent four years learning how to produce compositions the rest of us plebs don't "get."
This is the same LOL as before.
When photography was first getting started, there were a lot of people complaining that it would destroy painting as a medium. They also claimed that taking a picture was too easy; there was no art involved.
Now we laugh at those quaint ideas, because we accept photography as a legitimate artistic medium, just another way of expressing oneself, like writing, sculpture, and yes, painting.
CGI will probably end up being the same way. Maybe it will be easier to set up just the right "shot" in CGI rather than use a traditional camera. But that doesn't matter. A good artist in any medium uses the tools at his disposal to best portray what he sees in his mind, whether that image comes from memory, pure imagination, or what's right in front of him.
I have my desktop set up to use Ryan Bliss' art as wallpaper, and a lot of people see the nature scenes and think they're photographs. And, frankly, some of them really are that good.
On the other hand, good as Bliss and others may be, I really do prefer the actual photographs that $HERSELF takes. It's hard to compete with Mother Nature.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Ignoring the technical aspect... there is (amazingly!) an artistic component to getting a good shot. It's not as simple as pointing at what you want to photograph and hitting a button. You may replicate this if you have an eye for composition, but a human still has to make that decision at some point, and that person may well be (or have been) a photographer.
Having used both Maya and Blender for major projects, Blender isn't the one we need to make excuses for in terms of usability.
"Will we soon accept digital renderings in places where we used to expect photographs?"
We already do, car advertising in particular, but soon, very soon, SITCOM's, movies, and other forms of "entertainment" will be done entirely in the digital domain, why pay for an actor when you can render him/her and get a perfect shot every time? NO attitude, no drug problems, no million dollars paychecks.
Did anyone catch 2Pac's return to the stage? As cheesy as it was it is the holy grail, a performer in demand that never dies or creates other issues and is under total control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGbrFmPBV0Y
If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.
Omar N. Bradley
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Creating a 3D representation of a scenery is much harder than clicking your camera.
Call me when you can render the Wedding party in Blender. Or the Latest NFL game shots in blender. OR better yet, Any journalisim photos in blender.
Maybe the useless inanimate object in a studio for advertising photographers have no more job, but the rest of us that actually capture reality have nothing to worry about.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Companies already do cgi marketing campaigns in addition to photographic ones- and they will continue to do so in the future.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The film manufacturers are stopping production on many varieties of film because it just doesn't sell. Turns out all those sweaty, wild-eyed, frothy-mouthed, if-I-cant-take-it-in-camera-I-dont-want-it film buffs are shooting brackets and tone mapping the hell out of their photoshop'd pics. What's a Luddite that riots AND embraces the steam looms?
> "easy-of-use"
> software replacing photographers = outsourcing?
I'm not bothering to RTFA, as from my standpoint I'm not too worried about software replacing photographers. Some conveniences will come into play - an automated system at Rite Aid to take your photo, maybe a kiosk downtown that takes your picture and then makes a caricature. But then, the summary seems to focus on rendering vs actual photographs, which I think we won't really see much of - sometimes it's easier to render, but most of the time you pay a lot less to have someone go out and snap 20 photos vs having a 3D designer toil away on sketches, mockups, renderings, etc.
I've done all sorts of photography professionally - from fine art, documentary, photojournalism, weddings, to commercial (not at the same time). And by professional, I mean, actually getting paid for it and making a living and renting cameras, grip, lights, assistants - the whole gamut. I have since switched to 3D and I tell you it's slower because I have to do everything myself. It's not like animators or modelers are clamoring for still image jobs. I have to model, texture, build the shader, and light the scene everything myself (which isn't hard with my background - but radiosity is another matter). That's at least a 2-3 week additional work time for a project.
Photography won't be replaced by CGI any time soon because the former is faster. I can hire a crew and equipment and finish a shoot in 10-12 hours tops. CG supplements it with set extension or environment/ object replacement, but to create something CG from scratch takes a very long time. I give CG this: it's easier to setup lights whereas in real life you need an electrician or a generator for larger projects, especially if it's on-location outdoors. You also need a lift and an experienced assistant to operate them, and an impeccable sense of where the wires are of course, have safety in mind at all times. With CG, I just click a light node and bam, I can duplicate 2k lights down a tunnel for a car shoot. Obviously, the downside is the render time, particularly when you have to bounce and diffuse it but if you can segment the 6k image to different quadrants per render node, and rent a render farm, it's efficient.
Overall workflow, photography is faster in my experience only because there's people available to hire. Where I'm at, there's not too many freelance CG artists, or artists who knows lighting (because it affects the shader and vice-versa), and almost no photographer/ assistant know how to do CG. I seriously doubt CG will overtake commercially produced still photography (as opposed to wedding, event, documentary, etc).
A photograph requires a subject - similarly, a cgi render requires scene data. If you have the scene data, such as a product model, or a mountain, then you can take a virtual photograph by setting the lighting, framing the scene, etc.
So let's say I want an image looking up a tall skycraper from the ground. I could go out, find a location, wait for the right weather and lighting conditions and take my traditional photograph. Or, if I happen to be able to find a skyscraper model, I could easily compose the exact scene I want in my computer. Faster, probably. And maybe with Google's or someone else's increasingly accurate data, it could be an actual skyscraper and not just some stock model. So yeah, this will replace a lot of traditional photography, without a doubt.
But art is always up to the artist.
must... stay... awake...
It's simple to understand really. You the human, performing {x} task will be replaced when it is economically advantageous to do so. If replacing you with someone living in a foreign land or even locally provides an economic advantage. You will. If replacing you with a robot, or other synthetic construct provides an economic advantage. You will.
If your goal is to not be replaced then it will be necessary for you the human performing {x} task to stay ahead of your competition with regards to ensuring that it provides an economic advantage over alternatives to employ you. This is the most valuable lesson anyone living in a capitalist society can receive yet it seldom is taught. Dear employee, you are not an entitled individual, you are a cog in a machine. If you do not fit you will be replaced.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
When you hire (or have a friend do it for free) a photographer, they concentrate on taking pictures of people and the event. Before they have to gather equipment and plan for the occasion (will extra lighting be required? are there specifics not to take pics?). Then after the event, job is not over as photog needs to distribute the images (how many of you have a friend who took all kinds of photos but nobody ever sees them?). Like pilots (which some can be replaced by Otto or some other software program) do more than just fly the plane. There is planning and organization that is done before each flight.
People that say photogs will be replaced by software are the ones selling the software! A good photog is extremely valuable. I don't care if you are doing an engineers week banquet, ballroom dance showcase, wedding, 75th anniversary of whatever,.... you gotta have a person assigned to do just one thing: Photography. Otherwise it won't get done. And as you all know, pics or it didn't happen.
mfwright@batnet.com
Don't dismiss this too quickly. Only twenty years ago, my famous-in-the-right-circles photographer relative laughed at the notion that film or professional photographers would be replaced. Now a kid with a $300 camera and a bit of artistic sense can do any job he can, faster and, many times, better.
what all of the software tools do is make the amatuer photographer better (my point and shoot photos look a lot better than they did 20 years ago), they don't threaten "professional photographers."
I'll point everyone at the excellent CNBC documentary on Pixar if you want to see the impact computers have had on the animation industry (just different tools for the artists, you still need artists). "Waking Sleeping Beauty" is also a good look at the traditional animation industry. compare and contrast :-)
anyway, a huge part of photography is what the photographer "sees" not the tools that they use, that fact isn't going to change anytime soon
yes, the profession has been changed (when did "photoshop" become a verb? Kodak declared bankruptcy) and is being changed by technology but photographers won't be "replaced" anytime soon.
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
Because simply saying "look, I can do mediocre stuff in Blender" is so passé.
Weddings, school pictures, family pictures, journalism, mugshots, and nearly any other specific event that people want a visual record.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Cindy Sherman is not being replaced by software.*
*...anytime soon. Check back in a couple decades, though.
Being replaced by a computer is not losing your job to outsourcing, just thought I would point that out. Outsourcing refers to having the work done by an outside company instead of in-house.
Yes, many specialized photographic tasks have been and are being transformed into graphic designer tasks, with CGI. Examples include automobile advertisement photography. In the past, there were photographers based in Detroit, where the mainstay of their business was to photograph new (and usually yet to be publicly announced or shown) automobiles. To do this, they had barn-like studios, with car sized turntables and ramps. Now, this is primarily done by CGI. In fashion, sets are now CGI around the model. Sometimes, even the clothes! Remember the famous "water dress" photos of Giselle? The water dress was all CGI. The business is still "photography", drawing with light, but it is expanded well beyond capturing reality. Professions change with technology and time. While this is not in line with the cited article of the original post, wedding photography as a business is drying up because even amateurs can get decent results with modern automated cameras, and the magic "fix this" buttons in many photo editing programs. Mind you, they may not get great results, but they will get "good enough". Lower your standards, then you will not need to hide a professional photographer. The low and mid level professional photographers will lose. The high end, where the photographer does his or her own CGI will survive. Perhaps also we will see a continuing if tiny market for the high end formal sitting portrait.
-- Perhaps I see less than some, but more than many.
low end computer , adobe audtion , and 3dsmax for 32 bit box and max out windows ram
then use friends voices and make your 3d wireframes for hte animations loads a tuts available to learn freely. ...a tv animated show each week without hollystupid and its rules.
then what you say
then perhaps you are not worthy of the designation.
Photography (like any art, craft or discipline) interacts with reality - representing, simulating, interacting with and even creating it.
But not simply capturing it. That misconception is why artifacts like crime-scene and battleground photography are so dangerous and misused. Photographs resemble 'reality', but do not capture it.
ironic captcha: resemble
Chalk another one for the lawyers.
One advantage of CG is the elimination of concern over buildings and landmarks that must be licensed to appear in film or advertising. Movies and TV shows filming in NYC (especially Times Square) commonly replace buildings and advertising with computer images to avoid licensing and copyright concerns. It can be expesive when something falls between the cracks. An example - The movie poster for Spiderman featured a reflection of the Chrystler Building in Spidey's lens. The owners of the Chrystler Building sued and the poster was recalled, reprinted with a photoshoped image, and redistributed.
When starting from scratch with a full CG image all parties involved can be sure there will be no such FUBARs. Advertisers want eye popping images. Most are pretty flexible about the source.
Already being done, I know from friends of mine who work in IKEA PR-department that they have been constructing scenes in 3D modelling software instead of photographing for at least 3 years already.
I believe the correct buzzword is Creative Destruction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction
This sig is false.
There's a lot of variations on "realistic human 3D models are difficult and expensive, therefor CGI software is unlikely to replace photography anytime soon" in the posts above. Wanted to point out: DAZStudio4Pro is currently free (along with its companion programs Bryce and Hexagon) and comes with an androgynous free human figure (called Genesis) that can be easily worked into a wide variety of realistic men, women, children, aliens, and demons:
http://www.daz3d.com/i/products/daz_studio?
The site (and several others) sell presets to easily make Genesis into various realistic characters, also lots of 3D clothes, props, and scenery -- but, like Blender, DAZStudio4Pro is free (unlike Blender it's not open-source, has been paid software in the past, and almost certainly will be again).
Plenty of examples on the site's forums of extremely photo-realistic 3D human renders, too: http://forum.daz3d.com/ , try starting with http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=189377 and http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=165191
Quotes from A Man for All Seasons
I can see lots of great opportunties for combining photography with CGI. Take a bunch of still photographs (or perhaps a video) of your subject, use them to generate an accurate 3D model, then use CGI to generate the final image, free to play with lighting, depth of field, composition, etc., in post-processing.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Since when is automation "outsourcing"? People don't have secretaries type their letters anymore. Was that work outsourced? Projectionists have been replaced by fully automated movie projectors. Was that work outsourced? Unneeded work can go away and the world will be OK. Have you missed having a buggy whip at all?
So retarded. What a dumb idea. Photography will not die because you can 3d image shit. Do I want a 3d image of a 3d model of myself standing somewhere? Or a picture of my self standing on a 3d background? ok nice novelty or whatever, but when you're out and about you want pictures of you and your peeps there or whatever.
All joking of robots replacing artists aside, there is some truth to Mr. Meyer's concern, and I have felt the consequences. Allow me to share a brief story as my first-ever Slashdot comment.
My father migrated to the US as a young man and high school dropout and learned to make his living as a commercial photographer. He got good at it, and though our family has never seen an excess of money, we've been able to survive from his steady income from the variety of low- and high-profile clients. (Though the payoff wouldn't suggest it, some are extremely well known -- anyone with a credit card looks at one of his old photos every day. #brag)
The big, then-ugly switch to digital came and he closed his dark room and turned on his Mac. Since then, his most steady client was one of the top major US mobile phone carriers. For well over a decade (maybe two, I have a terrible sense of time), he shot all of their new phones for packaging, billboards, etc. The market slowly changed and other customers stopped asking for photos, but this single company kept our family afloat.
Last year the company hired a new marketing firm who convinced them to switch from hi-res photographs of their products to 3D computer-rendered graphics. My dad was no longer needed and after many years of nonstop work they dropped him. My dad, who is now 72 years old, with no other steady photo customers, has had to make changes. He packed up his photo studio and set up shop at home for occasional shoots, but is applying to grocery stores so he can pay the bills. (Being adaptable and resilient, he has also been teaching himself digital video editing in an effort to get into that market.)
What about the phone company's switch to rendered models? Apparently it has gone poorly for them. Word has it that the switch was a disaster -- turnaround for new images was neither cheaper nor faster -- and they have fired the marketing firm, who in turn, consequentially, has had to make massive layoffs.
So back on topic, yes, there is CG replacing some photography in the real world. But such an "upgrade" seems yet early. Maybe even premature or naively futuristic. Make what you will of its outcome.
If anyone wants a Poser compatible program to experiment with, "DAZ Studio" is currently... free. It has tons of content all included. Also Hexagon and Bryce are free at this time. Head on over to daz3d.com for details. Once you have it all downloaded, it's yours to keep, no time limits or anything.
Or "The March of Progress."
Most still images you see in magazines and ads are 3D images. Cars, beer, soap, lotions all are still rendered using 3D models. It's cheap because you don't need to ship a physical car out to the desert, along with a crew for the photo shoot, you just pay a 3D guy to open up 3d studio and maxwel render and you're set. I'm currently studying ray tracing under Henrick Wann Jensen and he's showed us the current state of the industry. Even in photo shoots of people you have massive photoshopping and editing. To think that photography for industry isn't going out the window is the same type of mentality that's keeping the physical newspaper around. Then again, I am biased.
To be fair, photographers replaced painters around the turn of the century--many asked why anyone ought to make "photo-realistic" (of course they didn't call it that at the time) paintings if you could just snap a photo instead. If CGI replaced photos entirely in the media then it would be a sort of restoration as it seems to me the CGI artist is more like a painter than a photographer.
I'm wondering how the two are related here.
none
You know what else happens? Faking data in scientific journals, or a CEO lying in his resume. It doesn't invalidate the rest of the profession. The rest of the PJs strive for the truth.
Looker, with Albert Finney and a very hot Susan Dey.
so no worries - the times when everyone has access to perfect posable and modular 3d-models and enough processing power to produce photorealistic results in the short turn-around times which are common in professional photography haven't come yet. and even if - where's the difference in work to a typical photograph? sure, models will feel the impact, but for a photographer it shouldn't make to much of a difference if he uses a real or a virtual lens.
Have gnu, will travel.
I used to think that the photorapher's career was doomed. Then I became good friends with a very talented photographer, and even assited her a few times. Her job is mostly PSYCHOLOGICAL. Connecting with the model/subject, getting them to relax, getting them to feel CONFIDENCE and let it shine through, so that the photograph is of someone beautiful and amazing! Plus all the work setting up the studio, and so on. There's no way a computer can replace that.
Now, she spends a LOT of time editing too, and honestly if a computer can reduce that workload (which is TOO much, almost crushing sometimes) so she can focus on the more human aspects, and the logistics of travelling all over the world to meet with the clients, then all the better! More automation means more work done! The computer is a tool of leverage, we welcome it!
Your rant has no time dimension! All you have is an impression of stupidity, not of changes. Even when you do mention time, it's just that you sampled people "decades ago" and you imply you haven't done so, since then.
And then you conclude "it has likely gotten worse" but you don't even provide an opinion, much less evidence, for why you think it might have.
20 years ago, people didn't make such lame arguments, therefore, people are getting stu-- no wait, 20 years ago they that too! Read dejanews and you'll see it was just a bad back then.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
It will eventually happen.
I'm not clear about the timeframe, though.
That's the one thing people don't realize. If this cell company has 50 new prototypes or finished products to photograph, plus parts (that are not interchangeable with older generation), then CG takes a hell of a long time. There's a big IF that the company can provide the original CAD drawings or diagrams for the CG artists to work off, but most of the time they have to recreate it from scratch due to protecting IP, or the legal dept. won't allow engineers to give the files to marketing, or most likely, engineering can't sanitize the files in time to only have the outer shell of the product. The only hand-off is the actual product.
Now, you have a photographer and a CG artist who gets the final product. One can setup the lights and turntable in 3 hours max, and start photographing about 100 shots in 20 minutes. By hour 4 he's done shooting the first phone and figured out the lighting. Now it's a matter of running the 49 other phones in an assembly line. The whole shoot is done in 5 hours (typically a half day rate for photogs).
Now for the CG artist. Assuming he's working by himself just like the photographer, he has to model the phone which takes an hour at his fastest. He either scans or photographs the phone for a reference image for the viewport background to match. Then he has to procure the right shader or build it himself according to the light setup he's using - that's 2 simultaneous task in 1.5 hrs. Then texturing, especially if the phone has tons of decals, particularly on the buttons like a blackberry. That's 2 hrs of tedious work of scanning images and wrangling with UV maps. Then tweak these new materials + shaders + lighting - about 30 min, and several test renders at low res which accumulates to another 30 min. Then render 1 image at 4k: 1 hour at best.
So now adding up, that's 5 hours of work for just ONE phone for ONE still image. There's 49 other phones to model plus accessories. Lighting can be the same and you can probably reuse 80% of the textures and shaders. However, rendertime is still one hour per frame (that's considered very fast for a 4k image) and an hour to do the materials; 2 hours per phone. So now we're looking for at least a week if not more to build all these phones from scratch and render them.
Post processing time for both is about the same. By that I mean, tweaking the final image or photoshopping out blemishes or adjusting colors.
CG takes a helluva long time to recreate from beginning to end compared to photography. And from personal experience, companies don't have much time for these marketing materials. As the image creator, you're the last one on the line of corporate budget, meaning that the budget was approved right before deadline, and you have 3 days of wiggle room to schedule a project timeline at best. Time is always your enemy and the marketing folks who hired you don't know how long things take. They just want the final product immediately like the businessman wanting his TPS report. Time is money and a photographer will beat out a CG artist in most occasions. Just open a Vogue magazine photoshoot. Each spread took 2-3 days to shoot, and another week to do post-processing. Try recreating the entire environment, people, objects, and clothes in 2-3 days. You can't, even if you have 5 modelers working with you (whereas a photog would have 3 first-assistants). While computers may become so fast to the point where renders are instant, talent will still run at the same speed.