I often wonder if the photographic greats of the past like Ansel Adams, Fay Godwin or Yousaf Karsh would have achieved the same level of popularity if they had of been born in our digital age. As talented as they were, the competition today is fierce. Every second person seems to have an SLR, and even if they don’t, they will invariably have a phone and or compact camera. It is staggering the amount of shots that pump through a site like Flickr every second of every day.Experiments are done from time to time where a famous shot from the past is posted anonymously on a photographic forum. More often than not it is ripped apart by the masses who don’t recognize it!

Would Henri Le Secq be able to regularly feature on Flickr’s ‘7 days of interestingnesssss’, or would he told to only submit photos that are faded, are of an iphone 4, or have a pretty girl and a flower in it on day 6!

Would Vivian Maier be labeled a terrorist for photographing street scenes in New York?

Nickolas Muray might be told that his portraits were ‘noob like’ and obviously ‘shopped’!

Would Ansel be told by the magazines that, whilst his Yosemite photos are interesting, he really needs to shoot less ‘rocks’ and more ‘tits and ass!’

Weegee routinely used an old Speed Graphic film camera. I bet he didn’t even know how many megapixels it had. Do you? ;) 

Very interesting questions my friend.
You made me wonder as well.
Wonder how masters of photography would have fared on stock sites where they are very strict and critical of every photograph.

I like your questions and observations. I agree the competition is fierce but I still see most people just raising their camera, snapping and putting it away without even looking to see what they captured. But, even accidentally, the probability of many excellent photos is extreme. It is happening, but most of those excellent photos will likely be seen by very few people, just like on Renderosity. Relatively few ever see the many excellent photos posted here.

Another question is the privacy issue. Now that many phones have cameras, I wonder if the legal reasonable expectation of privacy will soon become a thing of the past. Where are we going anyway?

Quote - I like your questions and observations. I agree the competition is fierce but I still see most people just raising their camera, snapping and putting it away without even looking to see what they captured. But, even accidentally, the probability of many excellent photos is extreme. It is happening, but most of those excellent photos will likely be seen by very few people, just like on Renderosity. Relatively few ever see the many excellent photos posted here.

Another question is the privacy issue. Now that many phones have cameras, I wonder if the legal reasonable expectation of privacy will soon become a thing of the past. Where are we going anyway?

Whaleman good point about security. As an example Me myself working in a power plant and I am taking pictures with my camera inside and as you said virtually everyone has a cell phone with a camera that include employees of the power station where I am working.

* ' people just raising their camera, snapping and putting it away without even looking to see what they captured*'.........that's so true. And it's the same person who buys a nice camera duty free cos that's the thing to do!. This camera sits in a cupboard 95% of it's life, waiting until something 'interesting' happens!!! I never go through a day without shooting off heaps of shots! If you don't see interesting stuff everywhere in this world, you're just not looking properly! 

Another very interesting post  Andrew and food for thought. I now carry my camera every where with me but am aware of privacy issues as where I work in aged care we are not allowed to take or publish photos of residents on a non- work camera, and they have to have given signed permission even for that.I do feel though this is taking things a bit far.
I have only become photo savvy since having my point and shoot what a lot I have missed out on but at least I can make up for it now