Seventy-one years ago Brooks Institute opened its doors to students of photography.  More recently, New England’s Hallmark Institute began in 1974, and locally Washington Artworks started forty years ago.  Within the month of August all three announced they’re closing their doors to students of photography.

The news hit me like a ton of bricks – not because it was so unexpected, but it was the realization that my photographic life has changed yet again.  I’ve worked in the photography industry over the last two and half decades.  More change has occurred during my time in the industry than in the prior 178 years when the first Daguerreotype was exposed on a sheet of silver-plated copper. Digital photography has transformed how people take pictures, process pictures, and share pictures.  But more importantly, “digital” has democratized photography so much that now almost everyone has a camera with them at all times.  This is not to say that all of these camera-toting people are photographers, but because there are so many more people that have the ability to express themselves through photography, there are actually more photographers as a result.

One could think that, with so many more photographers, the need for instruction would skyrocket.  It has, but the effect of the digital revolution is also seen in the process of learning photography.  Digital instruction is available on YouTube, Creative Live, Lynda and many other online sources. The cold hard fact is that traditionally styled artistic schools have a hard time recruiting and enrolling students. The perceived need for face-to-face photography instruction is lower with all of the digital options available.

The digital revolution has changed the definition of “social”.  “Social” used to mean person-to-person interaction.  Now it’s computer-to-computer interaction across the internet, anywhere, and at any time.  Digital photography has closed schools, shuttered companies such as Kodak and Polaroid, and altered the careers of many photo industry professionals.

Digital photography is an agent of change and, as the saying goes, “the only constant is change.”  Who knows what the next agent of change will be or where it will come from, but it will happen. All we can do is welcome change and follow the path to who knows where.

“Let me take you down
‘Cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever”

– John Lennon & Paul McCartney