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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Photography Culture

Goodbye and Good Riddance: Why I Won’t Miss Photokina

Chris Gampat
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11/27/2020
4 Mins read
Felix Esser The Phoblographer Photokina 2010 Leica M9 CCD Sensor

Last Updated on 11/27/2020 by Chris Gampat

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Many of you have seen the news that Photokina is no longer going to happen for the time being. I’ll admit that I always enjoyed my time at Photokina. As an accredited member of the press, I’m not going to miss the abysmal wifi (despite the staff’s incredibly kind and helpful efforts). Nor will I miss the insanity of the show and running from one booth to another through crowds of people walking no better than toddlers teetering about. Large shows are incredibly impractical. For business, they’re nice to get everyone in one spot for face-to-face meetings. But we don’t need those anymore. In fact, we haven’t needed them for a long time. And to me, Photokina’s possible death means we can actually instead spend resources on the photo industry’s sustainability.

The Phoblographer has changed a lot in the past year. I look back many times at where we were a year ago and then fast-forwarded to today. We’ve needed to change and adapt. Personally speaking, this feels like the years 2008 and 2009 all over again. We’re in a global recession. Back then, I remember sitting in my cubicle at PCMag and the desk at Magnum Photos. I witnessed hundreds of people get laid off and come out of a room with their faces buried in their hands, sobbing. It was sad, but in retrospect, every single moment was worth it. The tech industry survived and grew. Sure, magazines and print died or became a niche luxury product, but efforts were refocused, and sites grew.

Similarly, in photography, digital continued to grow. We went from film to digital, to mirrorless, and then mobile. And Photokina to me represents something that we needed to shed a long time ago. We don’t need trade shows anymore. We don’t need journalists and influencers who are wined and dined. We need transparency and sustainability. The traditional photo industry is in quicksand, and we are all struggling to grasp rope and pull ourselves safely out.

My buddy Frederick at TWIP recently spoke to Matthew Jordan Smith. If you don’t know who either of these fine gentlemen are please Google them. Frederick is a US Veteran, and Matthew has done work that always finds a way to make my jaw drop. Matthew recently remarked that Japan sees photography as just a part of life. They no longer see it as art that you hang on the wall. But the West thinks very differently. And these thought differences change things. The photo industry indeed is very fractured.

If you’ve been reading this site for a long time, you’ll know that I think we all need to evolve. We need to look at the watch industry—somehow, all those manufacturers survived and stayed alive. New ones even popped up. While the smartphone devastated their industry a long time ago, they recovered. Traditional cameras haven’t taken this seriously in a long time. They don’t find deeper integrations with smartphones. They don’t become objects people genuinely want. A watch geek is far different from a photo geek, but they share a passion for their products. The big difference is that the photo industry still thinks they’re necessary for every single person to have their product, while the mobile phone changed that a long time ago.

Photokina cited this as one of the reasons why the show is done for the moment. They think the photo industry is dead. In some ways, they set themselves up for it. For example, most companies rely on Sony for sensors. Years ago, they used to work with Kodak, Samsung, Panasonic, and others. It’s long been time for companies to diversify. We need the CCD sensor back. It can live alongside CMOS. We also need higher durability. And further, we need to either put our money where our mouth is with technology, or embrace our products’ flaws for what they are. In the next decade, there’s no way that every camera manufacturer will outdo Apple and Google in imaging technology and usefulness. So they need to find ways to become a million times better or become products of lust.

And as for Photokina, it needed to find a way to diversify a long time ago, too. 

I’ll miss wandering the streets of Cologne. I’ll miss the wonderful people. And I’ll surely miss Germany’s odd lack of understanding that there are beds larger than twin size in a hotel.

Personally, though, I’ve seen a ton of publishers and companies around us not diversify. And I’m excited about the future and to embrace what the next 10 years will bring for the photo industry.

advance culture diversity photo industry photokina technology
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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