Of course, everyone in the photobooks debate had their own preface and a necessary confirmation bias to bolster. Andy and Miki unleashed a monster. Great stuff.

IT’S THE EYE OF THE BURGER, IT’S THE CREAM OF THE FIGHT …

Hamburger Eyes has my mostest respect so far. HE is rightly confident in the book as a medium; HE doesn’t uphold a naive belief in the internet or technologies to deliver ALL the goods; and they make a call for real life.

Photos and photographers should “get into some shit” away from the web.

Hamburger says:

I was asked to write my thoughts on this subject as part of a forum in the form a blog, meaning FLAK PHOTO and LIVEBOOKS are writing about the subject and inviting others to join in by writing something, linking it, then they re-link it up for an ultimate future post of all of it together in one blog? I don’t know I’m confused too. Blogs eat blogs, and they never be not hungry.

Blogging is a good segway into my thoughts about the future of photo books. I’m thinking the internet is turning into a library or more like jail for your photos. Yes, libraries are way awesome and yes we are all photo nerds forever learning, but how long can you stay in there. It’s like detention for your photos. Saturday school. Your photos need to get out, go on dates, and get into some shit.

What happens next is what’s already happening now. Photogs are deleting their flickr and their blogs and crewing up with only the hardest realist ninjas. It’s hyper attack mode. Photogs are scrambling because their agency just cut them and their editors got laid off. Not to mention, “Oh, you shot this or that, someone else caught it before you on their cell phone and New York Times already spent their budget on those.”

HERE’S WHAT I SAY

I wrote a huge treatise not only on the future of books, but on the future of the image and the future of our existence based upon our surrender to the image. We will soon all be docile slaves.

I shelved the piece. I’ll need to chew on it for a while until the next photoblog debate about the future of photography/contracts/journalism/print/distribution/consumption comes along. My main points will still apply:

– E-books is an oxymoron. Hopefully, all digital text will be referred to as E-words.
– Actual books will be fewer in quantity and higher in quality.
– Open source will dominate, because ownership of any digital matter will become useless.
– Micropayments are bogus. In the future if a creator unleashes it on the web, they will hold no claim to it
– Every household will have access to rapidly improving printing technology; any available online material will be printable to spec.
– Handhelds will have instance access to every non-proprietary file on the internet.
– People will have self-facilitated projections to the sides of buildings as a legitimate alternative to books when experiencing images.
– We will become detached from one another. Those who question the mediation of technology – even moderately – will be ostracised. In this regard, book ownership will become a slightly perverse political act.