How Flickr Is Courting the Next Generation of Photographers

First time accepted submitter Molly McHugh writes Flickr Vice President Bernardo Hernandez explains how the beloved photo platform is targeting a new generation that's addicted to smartphones. “10 or 15 years ago it was expensive and complicated to explore the world of photography,” Hernandez said. "Very few people could afford that—[it is] no surprise the best photographers 20 years ago were older people. We believe all of that is changing with the mobile [photography] revolution."

Comments

...the best photographers were older people...

[fallen1]

Which is still the truth, in general. Photography on a cell phone does not equate to photography with a digital camera -- knowing what f-stop is, or shutter speed, or focal length, or a LOT of the other of the fine-grain minutiae that comes from a lot of time spent with film and digital cameras taking hundreds, if not thousands, of photographs.

Point and click it ain't.

Re:...the best photographers were older people...

[Anonymous Coward]

All that experience can be accumulated hundreds of times faster in digital where you can see immediate results.

I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on that for the vast majority. Why worry about composition, aperture, exposure, and white balance when one can burn through dozens upon dozens of photos, previewing the results immediately waiting for something worthwhile to show up, and sort/crop/align later. I've seen this first hand with my daughters and their friends. The shotgun approach may produce the occasional interesting photos but does not lead to refined skills required to produce stunning images.