Today, we’ll discuss photography trends that will be with us for a long time. It seems that everyone is already tired of using fireworks for entourage in the frame, a photo with a burning newspaper in the hands, and shooting reflections through puddles is now considered something archaic. These stylistic devices have outlived their time, giving way to others.
In recent years, several bright photography trends have been noted at once, which will be discussed. In 2022, they can rightfully be singled out as the most massive destinations that many have turned to. It seems that they will stay with us for the coming years.
Theory of Cyclicity
History remembers many global trends, which, at times, lingered for decades, evolving during this time. It applies to fashion and music, style, social moods in society, and even in photography. Fractals, the wheel of samsara, economic cycles, the cycle of history, Groundhog Day – all emphasize the theory of cyclicity.
Trends succeeded each other in parallel with the epochs, but many of them, after a while, again made themselves felt. So, for example, it was with GIFs when they first appeared. An animated image in a couple of frames creates a sense of depth and volume in the photo. Their peak of popularity was relatively recent.
To make such images, they even wrote special applications for smartphones. However, if you look deeper, you can see the stereo cameras of the last century, which, due to several lenses and unique settings, actually created something similar. These are the progenitors of gif images. History repeats itself.
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Technical Part of Photography Trends
1. Compact Cameras
The most massive technical trends were already popular in the cultural environment. The simplest film cameras, compact cameras, which are still used to shoot everything, were a massive trend at the end of the 2000s.
From the dawn of a creative culture in the United States, a generation of millennials loaded film into bright toy cameras from Lomography and films. Filmed from the hip, they filmed their visual finds, friends at parties, and selfies before the term even existed.
Only ten years have passed, and the trend for the most straightforward film cameras has already been revived. Toy cameras have evolved into the ubiquitous Olympus Mju-II.
Photography on film will likely continue to be famous for some time: nothing has come to replace this trend yet, and the generation of zoomers is already making a new turn of the spiral, gradually switching to more serious analog cameras.
2. Polaroid, Instant Cameras
Instant cameras do not just keep up with the trends of recent years but have confidently occupied their organic niche in the photo market. I have already written about instant cameras, the collapse of the Polaroid at the beginning of the 2000s, and its rebirth in 2010.
Instant cards remained an unnecessary option for nine years until the spiral took another turn. Again, cyclical.
Today, instant cameras do not seem incredible but are perceived as a natural position in any photo store. Brought by someone to a party, such a camera is common.
I assume that Polaroids are still waiting for a new round of history, at the beginning of which they will again sink into summer and then be reborn in a new format. When will it be? Probably not in the next five years. This trend is still interesting to people after 12 years.
3. Quadcopters
Over the past few years, more and more often, you can see a quadcopter in the arsenal of a photographer. It is especially true for those involved in weddings. A drone in the air helps to take general shots that you can’t shoot in any other way.
It is worth hypothesizing that the toolkit is expanding so much due to the development of technology: one camera and even a pool of several lenses is no longer enough.
In parallel with technology, the possibilities are also expanding: many photographers (especially weddings) today include shooting a small film in their price list and do it in parallel with photography. A quadcopter is the best fit for this story.
Everyone wants a cinematic image, and the dominance of TikTok and the Reels on Instagram poses a challenge for everyone who works with visuals.
In mass use, quadrocopters on the market are relatively recent. So it is worth waiting only for the even more significant development of this direction, but not for its departure from the trends.
Big companies are releasing more powerful models, and entire productions appear on the service market that is engaged in shooting video on quadrocopters.
Stylistic Part of Photography Trends
1. Color Light
Only from irons, there was no colored light last year. It seems that this is the most noticeable and massive trend that has taken shape in 2021:
- Everyone tried to shoot with colored light.
- Great photographers gave lectures on the topic.
- Sales of various devices soared.
Colored light is cinematic!
Over the past year, professionals have re-imagined photography precisely by using various sources of constant light. And many managed without them: the dark time of the day and the city’s bright lights provided the necessary tools for working with neon shades and their combinations.
If you look at the work of big photographers and big media on Instagram, then the prevailing number of images in the collections will be done with a play of color.
This trend has evolved from just schemes of matching colors in a frame to something more art-house. It is enough to look at the work of tops and recent magazine shootings. Of course, one can hypothesize about the continuity of multi-colored images from the times of Lomography and film euphoria, but this will be somewhat far-fetched.
Colored light and various distortions in the frame will continue to be in trends for a long time to come. This forecast in no way cancels the development of other areas and those who work in their style. However, shooting with flashy color has become massive. It is no longer a macro trend, from which everyone will switch after six months.
Bright shooting sets new conditions for the market and its participants: such trends do not just disappear. With the increasing use of flexible mirrors and the race for tricky light sources between photo studios, it is worth believing that this style will retain its leading position for a long time to come.
2. Film Simulation and Cinematic Presets
Over the past months, I have seen 5-7 different companies airing advertisements to sell cinematic presets for Lightroom. And this is not the first call!
Twisted grain, stylized to match the tone of a certain film, pastel shades – today, many photographers not only do this but even emphasize something like ‘masterfully imitating film’ in their description.
The warmth and texture of the film picture, which is so catchy for everyone who also buys a film camera, is only twisted to a professional level as a tool, without the film itself.
Photography is always a field of experiment. There are always new trends because creativity cannot stagnate and standstill. One of the characteristic images of the beginning of the 2000s was contrasting shots, a flash in the forehead, a general love for saturated HDR pictures. Today, on a new spiral turn, the prevailing number of photographers find a new vision in the forgotten film style.
Any trend has a lifespan and will inevitably be overthrown by the next trend. Given the ephemeral soil of the visual, it is difficult to make predictions:
- when will everyone get tired of the film picture?
- what can replace cinematography?
- can this trend evolve and acquire new views?
We can only make hypotheses.
This trend will likely go away and will go away in the near future. The film imitation story has been on the market for a long time without fundamental changes, and it can’t just stay that long.
With a common love for the film style, we still have to live and work in the next couple of years. And then, either the trend will reach the point of incandescence and fade into the background, or it will evolve, prolonging its life.
3. Double Exposure
The spiral continues its movement making a new semi-circle: photographs overlapping each other or double exposure was trendy about ten years ago. Primarily analog, during the boom in Lomography. It is a purely technical aspect, and it is associated with the availability of re-cocking the shutter on various film cameras.
There were double exposure portraits all over the internet where the layers complemented each other perfectly. And the digital cameras of those years were not yet so full to have this function. But time passed, and even on amateur photo ammunition, a multiple exposure function appeared.
If you look at the work of both domestic and eastern photographers from among the top ones, you can increasingly see this technique. Some even make the overlay in their signature style, such as, for example, Stas Liepa.
It is too early to say that this has already become a mass trend: multiple exposures are back, and so far, this trend is still at the development stage. Perhaps, due to the complexity of high-quality work with it. The masters set the tone for style, broadcasting to the masses, so we can only hypothesize that artisans who shoot in this genre will only increase in the coming years.
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