Lost Memories is a beautiful 3-minute-long short film by Francois Ferracci that imagines a future in which cameras can share images with the world as soon as they’re shot — oh wait, that’s now — and can beam holographic photographs into the air for easy uploading or editing. In such a futuristic world, would analog photography still have any role to play?

Paris, 2020. A beautiful couple, a city over-saturated by holograms and digital stream. A polaroid camera. Tomorrow will never be the same.

It’s a thought-provoking story that might make you think twice about both photographic mediums and data backups.
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Everything is a Remix is a fascinating four-part video series by filmmaker Kirby Ferguson that explores the concept of creativity, and how everything created has some degree of copying, transforming, or combining of old ideas. While the series isn’t specifically directed towards photographers, the ideas are quite relevant to the discussion of “original” work.
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Photography author Ben Long has a thought-provoking article over at CreativePro in which he argues that “all photos are manipulated” and that “there is no such thing as absolute truth in photography”:

All images are Photoshopped. Or Lightroomed, or iPhoto’d, or dodged, burned, re-touched, cross-processed, developed with more or less agitation in the tank, at warmer or cooler temperatures, and so on and so forth. This has been true since the beginning of photography.

Understanding the representational nature of photography will help you take better pictures because you’ll better understand how to exploit the strengths and weaknesses of the medium.

But perhaps more importantly, it’s important to understand that all images are manipulated. Still photos are the dominant communication medium used for everything from entertainment to artistic expression, journalism to sales. Becoming a more informed, understanding viewer will make it easier to understand when and whether there’s any “truth” in the images put before you.

For similar discussions, check out this article by Mark Schacter and this video with Errol Morris.

All Photos Are Manipulated (via Reddit)

Image credit: Truth or Consequences by kxlly

PressPausePlay is an award-winning documentary film that poses questions on what the digital revolution has done to various creative industries:

The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities.

But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era.

Although the topic of photography isn’t addressed directly, the film is very relevant to photographers, since the imaging industry has definitely been transitioning from old school (film and traditional distribution methods) to new school (digital and Web-based distribution methods).

Thanks for the tip, Conrad!