Photography was certainly one of the fields that had more changes during the last several years. Since the black and white photography, passing through the innovation of color until the rush of the digital era. And from now on, what’s the future? 

“Photography is everywhere”, said Marcos Pinto, Associação de Fotógrafos Profissionais (Professional Photographers Association) president. This is the main difference in the last several years: the expansion. So on, Pinto rejects the usual thesis that in the digital era everything’s easy, saying that “digital photography, just like the black and white, requires technique”. So, “it’s not easy to take a good digital photo”.

With the massification of photography as an hobby and with the fast acknowledgment  of the digital methods, Marcos noticed that the “albums were disappearing”, at least in their traditional way. “Now when we photograph we keep it on our computers or Facebook pages”, he says, so as to identify then the best path to explore in the years to come - memories. Everybody likes to have their childhood or other special moments saved to remember them in the future. A flaw that the “trivial holiday photos” can’t fulfill. 

In that way, Marcos Pinto argues that “a photo is created with our head and the camera’s only function is to capture the moment”. And this ability is the greatest advantage of a photographer. An opinion that Jerónimo Coelho, photo author, reinforces, being that the only use he gives to the new photo editing programs. “The photo must show what the photographer sees; the scene as I see it, the textures as I see them, the colours how I see them”, he explains. “That is the only manipulation I do”.

For the author, there is a technique that is applied in every kind of photos: the light. “It is essential to know how to work and use the light  in photography”, so comparing photographers to writers, being “light the utility we have to ‘write’ photography”. Talking about capturing, Público photojournalist António Carrapato alerts that “an image doesn’t have to be obvious”, especially in his field, when the main purpose is to “complement the text”. That purpose is, at the same time, the one reason that often leads people to make that mistake. 

Carrapato believes that Portugal “has the photojournalism culture”, but, on the contrary, “there is not an audience for it”. And he goes further - “the problem is only one: in Portugal people don’t read”. So, lots of institutions “see in photography the right field to economise and that is the main reason for the atrocities we often see”. That is the reason why, according to Carrapato, “the best works in photojournalism in Portugal are hidden because they don’t have a place to be published”. 

We probably watched, through the last several years, to the greatest phenomenon of expansion of an artistic field. And Jerónimo Coelho has no doubts when saying that “photography will be the 21 century hobby”. “There is no one who doesn’t take photos”.