Toronto. When was the last time you saw a photographer’s studio on a popular retail street or plaza? Lots of tiny shops that also take passport photos, or a local licence bureau or a mall Santa Claus with a back-board/back-drop and camera set up hooked to a computer, but few if any genuine walk-in studios.
Like many other industries, photography and its customers have mostly disappeared under the waves of digital technology. Every smartphone has a camera, often with software controls that make the rawest neophyte an instant expert. A recent news announcement in the States offers a cheap AI driven camera sold by Google to take great shots of pets and children it recognizes …
My thanks to George Dunbar for the photograph of an old fashioned studio down south in the small town of Corinth, Mississippi a century and a half ago. Corinth was founded a few years earlier and became embroiled in the American Civil War. The original was taken by George Armstead and this image is courtesy of BuzzFeed News. who credit the J Paul Getty Museum where the image is on display through May 27th of this year (2018).