With smart phones, it seems like almost everyone has a camera on them at all times and they are constantly taking pictures. Likewise, everyone is an "expert" with apps like instagram and everyone is "published" because of Facebook, Twitter, etc. If you own a Mac at least, iPhoto makes color correction pretty simple (enhance!). Is a photo's worth becoming less? Does anyone print and hang photos anymore? Is this a good thing or a bad thing or neither?

It kills me a little. The buried-on-my-computer to hanging-on-my-wall ratio is 1M:1. That's sad. If anything, I'll post a handful of favorite images on my blog and people will skim past them... because it's just a drop in the bucket.

We actually have a wall dedicated to family photos. We have framed photos we intend to put on this wall. But the wall currently has about 10 photos in about 5 frames that I rushed to get up one day before some guests arrived, the recently framed photos have been waiting to be hung for about 2 weeks.

I've made one photo book with iPhoto and have had it printed. I have two others started. I also have plans for about 12-16 photos on a main wall in our living room.

Lots of plans, not a lot of follow through. Am I lazy? Or does it relate to photos being everywhere all the time. It's a lot easier to post a photo to facebook then to print, frame, and hang it. Maybe that's good.

Yeah, I have mixed emotions.

It's amazing in terms of getting to watch lives unfold digitally. The fact that we see photos of riots in real time from people on the streets is incredible. Or photos from Mars. There is absolutely value in all of that. There's value in the visual storytelling.

But the value of a single photo has diminished. You don't stare and wonder. You don't keep it in your wallet or locket or whatever. As an art medium, it feels like stock is going down.

People interact differently with physical things than with digital versions. I've found that when folks look at images on an ipad or monitor they feel rushed and much more patient with books or prints. To me it's a "transmissive vs. reflective" thing as well.

But I can tell you from experience that a great number of people still do printed products, but the big task has become editing with the vast numbers of images available on the average person's hard drive or phone.

The quality of new cameras make it a really exciting time to be creative. The stuff that comes through Blurb in book form is absolutely amazing.

I don't think a photo's worth is less. Just... different. For example, music-lovers decry the death of vinyl as a way to enjoy music. This "physical" consumption of music has given way to the cloud, and as a result our music libraries have swelled while our CD towers have hit the trash. While part of me misses the simple joy of putting on a record and savoring every song, I would trade that in a second for the way I consume music now: always at my fingertips, with a new song and a new artist around every click and corner. Same goes for photos. At it's very heart, photos are meant to be seen, consumed. Does it really matter whether that occurs on a newsfeed or a living room wall?

When we look photos as independent medium without comparing to others (words, videos, illustrations) yes, photos seem to suffer some sort of inflation as appreciated medium. I think the main problem is the rapid growth of mediocre photos. These kind of photos do create a lot of noise, but I think the more visual media the world is going on, the more we should realize that with the professional photos, the appealing factor doesn't wear off so fast like in the bland pretty pictures. As viewers, we should get more self-aware, why we like some photos over another to truly appreciate photos as medium and the great people working in that industry.

Way back when, you only really encountered two types of photos: personal ones or professional ones, and both were blessed with context.

The personal ones held some meaning for you, brought back some memory, made you think about someone. The professional ones were generally of a thought out quality that conjured up similar emoting. Just think of the Afghan girl with the green eyes. I don't know her personally, but the photo makes you think about who she is, where she's from, what she's thinking.

The difference with new distribution channels is you get amateur photos with no context. Seeing a photo that you have no personal connection to, but is also not taken thoughtfully, is not worth a 1,000 words. It's just something to scroll past.

I think part of the problem with personal photos is that we take so many because it is so easy. And then they all sit on a computer. My guess is a large portion of pictures taken get looked at once (when you take the picture), posted to fb or twitter if you like it, then get transferred to a hard drive never to be seen or heard from again. Once in a while we might spend a weekend trying to go through them all but by that time it's a daunting task. At least that's how it seems for me.

Before digital cameras, you had to think about the shot, get the film developed, and then go through all the pictures to see what you had. At that point, it was easy to put the ones you liked in a photo album.

Also, photo albums seem a lot easier to look through, which is why I've been trying to create photo books. I think if you can get digital photos to some sort of physical format, they become a lot more valuable. It's a lot easier to look through a book or album with a couple people than it is to sit in front of a computer screen. You're more likely to randomly show someone else the photos or look through them yourself if it's a book sitting on a shelf.

But I think that part - turning digital into physical - has actually become a lot more difficult due to advances in technology. The difficulty comes from the amount of photos we take and sorting through them all. This is sort of the opposite of what is supposed to happen with technology.

Another problem with digital photos on a hard drive is it can literally be years before you try and print them off and organize them. A lot of memories can be lost this way. Where with film, you get the photos developed, put them in an album, and write notes on the back of the photos or beside the photo.

I guess I'm just talking from personal experience. I can't say with any certainty that this is a common problem. :)

Yeah i agree with all of the opinions on a personal -memorial- photo's worth, i do collect most of the photos to be seen max. twice a year or so... But i also think that this all thing with the oportunities of taking photo brings the quality and creativity with it. For example i think that flickr has a lot of well quality memorial photo those actually hasn't thaken to be an art object but with a professional camera just because the owner of the camera can efford the price of the photo to be seen. From this point i don't think that the worth of photography itself is less than how they were before.

Also i think that with the tech-toys those have pretty good ability on taking photos (such as, iPhone) and the D-SLR's getting easier to get, the creativity is spread. Now you can see so many people taking a photo of famous points in famous cities with high quality tech-toys and this makes the amount of good picture of a famous view increase. So i think this leds the photographers to take more creative shots that has ever been... I mean you can't say that hey i took a photo of Statue of Liberty and i'm the one... Everyone laughs at you, so you know that you need to do something different as much as every photographer friend of yours feel. And yeah I don't think again the worth of a photo itself is less. (Sorry for grammar mistakes :) )

We recently got a digital photo frame, which got me to go through all my digital photos since 2001, and that led me to enter a few photo contests (just for fun ;) Since we have a tiny condo in the city, I don't have much space for storing photos or negatives, thus I am so grateful for the digital medium.

True, there are so many mediocre images floating about on social media, but I enjoy looking at them for the most part. They tell me something about the person (maybe not a thousand words). Good photos or not, they still say something to me. Oh, and good photos do stand out, whether online or in my hard drive. I make calendars with mine to hang on the wall.

I don't think the point is if we get great photos or not, but how those photos are worth to people who takes them. I believe that digital cameras, smartphones and social media are responsible for a "photography democratization", where anyone can take pictures and express themselves.

Sure, some of them might not have the same affective value as 20 years ago, but some are yet extremely valuable. Moreover, people are, as I said, expresseing themselves even more via photography.

Human kind has always used pictures to tell stories and express its feelings. I believe that we are still doing it so, and more and more people are adopting this method.

This debate reminds me of how the Super 8 movie camera stirred things up in the 60s. Suddenly everyone had access to movie making potential. Do we now decry the over abundance of movies? Remember it allowed Spielberg and Coppola to make landmark works of art. Hopefully as Danilo says above, the democratisation of photography keeps people expressing themselves and empowering more people to make more art.

It comes down to the story a picture tells. Whether from an iPhone or a Leica. Quality of course can be important, but what are the most memorable shots you have seen? Think of Capa, sometimes blown out but immediate or Bresson, a snapshot that's not always perfectly sharp. The truth will rise to the top, whatever the quantity.

Cliche, but a camera at hand is always a better one than the ones left at home. In a way, it's nice that advanced technology allows more people to use the medium to express themselves.

Photos can convey powerful messages, sometimes better than words, but both combined together becomes even more powerful. We must use them with care. 

As for the personal ones, keeping a good (comfortable) balance between "living the moment" & "preserving the moment for future (taking pics)" is important.