Posted by: Contributing columnist, CLARION LEDGER FEATURE, BUSINESS, October 28, 2015:
The recent authentication of only the second photograph of Billy the Kid really got me thinking about how much our world has changed in the 150 years since that photo was taken. The ability to perfectly record a human being’s face and the look of a landscape was less than a century old at that time, but in the intervening time we’ve developed technologies that will preserve very rich digital histories for future generations.
Photographs began to emerge in the early 1800’s, but while the earliest ones did at least replicate scenes fairly perfectly, the setup was a long process. The oldest photos had very long exposure times — which meant that anything in the photo would be blurred if it moved hardly at all over a time period of not just minutes, but days! That’s obviously not conducive to making portraits of people, but the technology came along quickly enough that by the mid-1800’s photography had become more flexible and mobile — although with a fairly heavy camera and flash.
While there were general improvements in photography over time, digital photography has accelerated improvements in nearly every aspect. Obviously today we carry around very sophisticated still and video cameras in our pockets on smartphones, and any significant event that happens today is probably captured in multiple videos.
I find it really interesting that the camera technologies during my lifetime have changed along with the subjects of the pictures. I daresay we can tell a photo’s age from the clothes they are wearing, the hairstyles, but also from the type of photo. While the formats and size of the photos have certainly changed over time, the biggest difference is obviously the change from black and white to color — and especially to vivid color.
While we take almost all color pictures today — except for those purposefully artistic black and white ones — my generation has only seen pictures of our parent’s weddings in black and white. It may just be me, but it’s hard for me to imagine anything before the 1960s in color. As a powerful symbol of how camera technology changed with the times, I’ve never seen a video of anything related to the civil rights movement in color. Those black-and-white videos are moving and powerful because of their imagery, but for my generation they seem so far back in time not just because they predated us but in part because they predated color video.
Of course, today we’re on the verge of new and immersive displays and photography and the technology to film, and display in fully immersive formats isn’t just a technology of the future — it’s here. Anyone with a smartphone should use the YouTube app to search for “360 degree videos” from your device. These videos show what can be done using the simplest of interfaces to create a completely immersive experience. Cameras to film in 360 degree video are now available for under $400, which brings the ability to capture video in this very powerful format to nearly everyone who really wants it.
Virtual reality has been much discussed and there have been virtual reality systems around for many years, but that technology is also evolving very quickly. Facebook’s purchase of VR maker Oculus Rift for $2 billion caused some jaws to drop, but subsequent interviews with Mark Zuckerberg have made it clear that VR is seen as the interface of the future for digital content.
Perhaps the most interesting of the developments on the VR front, though, seems the most low-tech of all. Google recently introduced Google Cardboard — which is literally an origami-like cardboard box that folds to make a VR headset that holds a smartphone. I have to admit that I thought this was actually a parody from The Onion when I first saw it, but reviewers say it is truly revolutionary when coupled with the Google Cardboard App, a good smartphone and a 360-degree video. It’s hard to believe, but a simple cardboard box can now turn any smartphone into a 3-D VR headset.
As the VR medium is maturing, there are more and more films and dynamic videos to take advantage of the formats. The Oxford Film Festival in February 2016 will be the first event I know of in Mississippi to include screenings of VR films, and I’m more than a little curious about what an event like that would look and feel like, considering the personal nature of VR systems. Normal films require the audience to be in synch with the angle and view that the director intends, but in a VR film, I guess it will be altogether possible to turn around and take the perspective of several different angles. I’m going to have to see it to fully comprehend how that will feel.
All of this makes me wonder: What will future generations be able to know and see about our generation? Clearly the digital history we are leaving will make them more aware of history and connect them to the past, but next week I’ll explore just what that might do to connect ourselves across generations.
Tony Jeff is the president and CEO of Innovate Mississippi. He can be reached at tjeff@innovate.ms.