Experimenting and researching different 3D technologies has brought be down an interesting, yet deep, photo-philosophic rabbit hole. Much like Alice in Wonderland, I find myself trying to understand if I am the one that is huge in a small room, or is the room so small I seem huge?

Photography defined by Merriam-Webster

“…the art or process of producing images by the action of radiant energy and especially light on a sensitive surface (as film or an optical sensor)”

For the past 5 years, there has been a photographic-technology battle between the contemporary digital Mirrorless camera versus the more traditionally used digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras. In between battles, there has developed this grey area of photograpic-technology such as: focus after the fact imaging, 3D imaging, and AR or VR imaging. I call this the more “boutique” side of imaging, as throughout photographic and imaging history we have had people trying to make a more immersive photo viewing experience. Think back to perhaps your  childhood days of exploring the world with a little red Viewmaster; or arguably its 1900’s predecessor the Perfecscope. 

 What this has lead me to wonder is; what is the future the very term and art of Photography? 

As technology progresses, by current definition, radian energy or light data is still being captured to a sensor. But now, it is producing an image that captures a moment in time by its  brightness, contrast, and color. We are now capturing, with literal depth, the stereoscopic world that light travels in. But will 3D images ever be considered a “photograph?” As 3D technology progresses, will we look back at the days of photographs being 2D digital or printed images with the same crude or archaic regard we have today to the early tintypes?  Or will 3D imaging fall out of the boutique category, and create its own? Much like moving-pictures did in founding videography