Film and wet processing and printing will virtually disappear in the 21st
century and will be replaced by electronic photography. Electronic cameras
will be fully automatic. A small computer inside will select the appropriate
speed, aperature, shutter speed, focus and composition based on an analysis
of the subject. They will be attached to the photographer's forehead and
point wherever the photographer is looking. The photographer will talk to
the camera and tell it when to record an image, but if the camera sees a
scene it thinks is important it can override the photographers instructions.
By mid-century true 3-D images will be recorded by holographic, electronic
cameras. These images will be "printed-out" in small plastic cubes that
look like paperweights.
Silver based photography, alternative process printing and daguerreotypy
will be kept alive by a small secret society of fine art photographers.
Prints produced by this group using antique equipment will appear from
time to time at famous auction houses where they will command prices
in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. They will be purchased by museums
and wealty collectors.
The secret society will be similar to the guilds which operated in the
middle ages. Membership will be limited. Newly elected members must first
swear never to reveal the secret formulas and proceedures to non members.
Members of this secret society will look like ordinary people but memebers
recognize each other by a silver nitrate stain on the right index finger.
Members also use code names when communicating with each other that are
derived from the arcane knowledge in the sacred books of the society such
as; "dark slide", "ferrotype", "bellows factor", "Asa", "f-stop", "f/16",
etc.
Bob Schramm
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