Photobook of the Future

While thinking about the long view of the photobook, I began to wonder what the next generation of imaging may be. For some of us, we have seen the rapid decline of celluloid and the rise of digital imaging. The history of photography has had a long transition to digital with the most rapid change occurring during the last decade.

So what will be the the next format? Will the photobook of the future be more akin to a digital paper that displays images captured with a floating lens? Or maybe something virtual that appears with a heads-up display. Will the technology make the photobook of the future obsolete?

I think now we should be thinking about how a single image will have relevance. I am wondering if we will simply have an ongoing stream of pictures constantly being captured with some type of video camera that tracks where the eye is looking. A single frame can be extracted from the stream of images and displayed as an isolated picture for analyses and aesthetic contemplation. A series of these pictures can be sequenced to compose a digital photobook for viewing on digital paper.

Something to contemplate. Have you stopped long enough to wonder about the future of the photobook?

See the blog from The Long Now at the right.

To be continued.