Hi Markus, very interesting questions! I think idea 1 "Finding photo opportunities nearby" is not that far away. A ki-powered search engine that analyzes my images in a cloud storage, uses maps, street view and in addition the inputs of "human" sensors into the internet should already be able to give me hints on my smartphone camera for motifs that interest me. Not perfect as in the future, but already rudimentary. Idea 2 " The world as a camera" is much more future and would give us completely new possibilities. I myself, for example, accompanied the construction of a new bridge over the Rhine for 3 years as a photo project a few years ago. This was possible because the construction site was right on my doorstep and I could be on site at any time. In the meantime, there have been other new bridge constructions that I could not accompany due to the distance alone. With Idea 2 that would not be a problem at all. I could have easily done such a project from home for the Okavango river bridge, which was built thousands of kilometers away in Africa. Great new possibilities. But: both ideas lead me to the question if photography as I do it today would still interest me then. I don't earn my money with photography, I do it as an amateur. You already said it, the search for the motif is part of this kind of photography. Would photography still be interesting for me with the knowledge that everyone gets the same motifs from the camera? Even if I myself do not use the possibility? I don't know. My example of idea 2 would have nothing to do with my current photography in the future. For the pure documentation a great possibility. But from the photographer's point of view still interesting? Maybe in a completely different way than today. I am optimistic.
Thanks a lot for your comment. Very interesting to hear of your bridge reconstruction project. Indeed you could’ve done it from home if idea 2 was in place. I like the question you pose. Would photography as we practice it today still be interesting if idea 2 was real? I don’t have a straight answer but I also stay optimistic. With regards to idea 1 you are right. One could start an AI powered platform today and still have humans feed into it if they give the AI access to the recent photos they took. One could start today ☺️
One thing that is already happening is that my new phone has a very good camera. I can't always take my good camera with me but my phone can still take good pictures if I see the opportunity.
