I feel like Photography is not dead but the moving image in this age is a great tool in an artist's arsenal. I feel like the future is Still images complemented by the moving image. I personally feel like my own future as a photographer will be a heavy mix of the two. When I am planning an editorial I think in terms of a full story told through fashion and beauty and I think short movies that tell the whole story as well as still images that do the same are a great way to fully convey my vision.
Photography and Filmmaking
Creative, conceptual and technical; contemporary and historical
Photography has moved on like how our languages are used in our text messages, no longer do we spell out every word on a text message, but in as few words as possible to get the long message across.
- "I wish I was a god with a thousand arms, each one with a camera" Nobuyoshi Araki
I am very excited by the potential of fashion films. I fully agree with Nick Knight on all points and especially about the still image itself being somewhat of a compromise of the designers' intentions.
Fashion films present many new possibilities as well as a whole set of new (cough!) challenges for all concerned.
I feel that:
New requirements for models are not being sufficiently dealt with on an agency level.
Serious moving fashion imagery is not a moving still shoot.
It is another medium that requires new approaches from the model, the stylist and all concerned.
Clients are somewhat daunted by the demands of this new medium on all fronts from the necessary website interfaces to the differences in logistics when compared to a still image photographic session.
These are all really big issues that must be examined and dealt with.
In reply to Dan Salzmann:
What is the big difference between fashion films and high end fashion commercial TV ads-besides the restriction of time?
In reply to Berti:
Re. Will fashion film become as iconic as fashion photography - why not?? It's entirely possible. Photography itself only began to be seriously valued both artistically and monetarily in the early eighties. AND that includes not only the work of contemporary art photographer like Sherman and Mapplethorpe but also 'iconic' imagery by 19th and early 20uh century masters like Alfred Stieglitz, George Platt Lynes and Steichen. Contemporary FASHION photography only started to be appreciated as iconic or important even later than that, following photography's acceptance into the art world and, indeed, an increasing acceptance of fashion as an artisan, if not art, from in itself. There was still controvery in the SEVENTIES over exhibitions of fashion, many arguing that it wasn't important enough to be include amongst 'legitimate' museum collections. That seems ridiculous now. In future, perhaps your arguments will seem equally spurious.