| What happens when you let
loose a team of crack photo and digital imaging reporters onto the floor
of America’s biggest photo and digital imaging show? Read on.
Each year, the Photo Marketing
Association holds its annual trade show. The event, held this year in
Orlando, Florida (the backyard of Shutterbug world headquarters), is where
virtually every photo and digital imaging company breaks the news on new
products, services and new technologies that will affect how imaging is
done for years ahead. Some of the items become available right after the
show; others are shown as teasers and may not appear on store shelves
for a few months. In all, the show serves as a symbol of trends and developments
in this exciting field. It sets the high tide mark for the flood of products
that will soon compete for your attention and your money.
Though the show is geared toward
and mainly attended by dealers and distributors, it also creates an imaging
environment that tells us where photography is heading. And while digital
imaging products have come on strong and indeed may have dominated the
show, there was plenty there for practitioners of film-based photography
as well. The hundreds of booths ran the gamut from digital SLRs to medium
format rangefinders to new ball heads and film.
Covering the show is a daunting
challenge, but one that I believe our team of reporters handled with grace,
aplomb, and dedication. Their task was to report on both the trends and
the items that caught their eye. The "kid in the candy store" approach
meant that each reporter brought their own unique perspective to their
area of expertise and delivered information that appealed to their own
photographic passions as well as that of their constituency--you, the
reader.
Each reporter was assigned
their specific area of interest, although each was free to editorialize
about their overall impression of the events. As you read through the
reports you will see how each one handled their own interests in their
own unique way. No one report can give you the big picture, and we assume
in covering the event that the sum of the individual impressions will
be greater than all the parts.
If we hopefully inspire you
to follow up on some of the items mentioned we have provided a summary
list of contacts for every article on page 250. We have also made arrangements
to get review samples of many of our favorite items for a more comprehensive
set of reports in future issues of Shutterbug.
This sort of coverage makes
it necessary for us to mention items in all too brief fashion here. But
we hope that the following reports give you a good taste of the flavor
of this show, and an indication of where photography is heading in the
years ahead.
--George Schaub
|
