What do Annie Leibovitz and Steve Jobs have in common? A Photography Hall of Fame induction
posted Monday, August 22, 2016 at 2:45 PM EST
To celebrate the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum's 50th anniversary, the Hall announced eight photographers and "photography industry visionaries" who will be inducted as part of the 2016 class.
The full list of inductees is as follows: Ken Burns, Ernst Haas, Steve Jobs, John Knoll, Thomas Knoll, Annie Leibovitz, Graham Nash and Sebastião Salgado. The inductees were selected by a nominations committee that is composed of IPH representatives and "distinguished leaders in the photography industry."
The late Steve Jobs' name jumps out from the list of photography greats. As Hans Rosemond of Fstoppers notes, perhaps it's not such a strange name to see on the list after all. Smartphones have forever changed the way that people capture and share images and, the iPhone changed smartphones. Mobile photography has changed the world of photography and Steve Jobs, along with the help of countless engineers and designers, was a part of that revolution.
Whether or not the advent of mobile photography is a good thing for photography overall is up for debate, but it's more clear-cut that Steve Jobs at least embodied "...innovation in modern photography" and therefore deserves his posthumous induction. I'm hard-pressed to pinpoint any single product that more dramatically changed the way that the world captures and shares photographs than the iPhone.
On October 28, Jobs and the rest of the list will join 69 previous Hall of Fame inductees. Additional details on the celebration and induction ceremony will be available at a later date.
In the meantime, what do you think about the list of inductees? Does Jobs deserve a place among the others? Let us know in the comments below.