It makes for a lot of photographs.

When the Gutenberg Bible was printed in 1455, it was the first book printed on cheap paper using moveable type. At the time there were maybe a hundred thousand books in print in Europe. Fifty years later there were twenty million. A similar tidal wave is sweeping over photography through the proliferation of web sites.

A couple of weeks ago the U.S. Census Bureau reported that America’s population had crossed 300 million. Even given Government magnitudes of error, meaning the number is 300 million +/- 100 million, that’s a big number.

A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal published a piece on how sales of digital SLRs were booming as photographers wanted something perceived to be better, or at least something without picture destroying shutter lag or camera shake. They mentioned that the percentage of ‘serious’ photographers in the US was 2%. While I have no idea where that number came from, let’s assume a 200mm population of age capable snappers. At 2% that makes for 4 million serious photographers.

Of those four million, lets dismiss 75% as equipment fans who couldn’t take a good picture if it hit them. Down to 1 million.

Of that million, let’s be charitable and say 10% can see rather than just look. 100,000.

Half of these will be mired in old ways, denigrate modern technology and think a web site is a place where ducks with big feet gather. 50,000.

Of those, 50% are passionate enough to show their work. 25,000 real photographers. Why ‘real’? Because if you do not show your work you are not a photographer. No artist can claim the title if no one sees his work as, by definition, photography/art must be seen to be appreciated. By others, that is.

So 25,000 web sites. Now add 25,000 for Europe and 25,000 for the rest of the world and you have 75,000 web sites of good photography, each containing some really good work.

Now add the Gutenberg effect as the populations of China and India and Africa get digital cameras and you have a quarter of a million photography web sites in twenty years.

Which brings me back to the theme of my entry the other day, No more Great Photographers? The individual has been buried by the very technology that makes his work accessible in the first place and the chance that you or I come across one another’s work in a lifetime are very remote indeed.

Technology as enabler has destroyed the significance of the individual.

So while I love how easy it is to make a picture today, I also rue the lack of fame, or even the prospect of fame, that dooms my work.

And yours.