You know what, I think that all along through the evolution of Photography, all of its aspects from boiling mercury and ten minute exposures, to the Kodak Brownie [the first camera to be widely available] to 35mm SLR's, to the first flash bulbs, then tubes, first colour films, negative and positive, and formats getting smaller and smaller and the arrays of developers and processes that came and went... to all those things you mentioned Nick. At all those major steps, and major innovations in the field... someone out there felt the same way you do.

I mean, I can just imagine being a photographer who was used to shooting 8x10 traditionally in studio, with the rigour and skill required. And then see the emergence of 6x7 film and photographers shooting with it, doing similar things. You know, I'm sure he must have thought, "Well, that's it... photography is dead now."

But I think the reality could possibly be [and mind me, I probably have no clue what I am talking about here] that the human race is quite good at adapting and pushing things. Transportation is transportation, whether on foot, on horseback, in car, on airplane, spaceship, teleport doorways [I am hoping for this one] it will always still be transportation. Getting someone from one place to the next.

So maybe the future of photography is going to be a little different, but to me, it's still going to be photography.

[and I really, really, really hope that it still will be Photography otherwise I'm out of a career I haven't really started yet]

eucinpyos has a very good point ... it is part of the 'evolution' of photography ... and to make photography as interesting and extremely appealing medium again .... that is in my opinion, ... that next step .... and the challenge ...
To make a film is not the same as making 'the film' ...there lies the secret... however much technology may evolve ...... quality ... it is all about quality .... I believe !

From what I have seen digital has been given the same camera charectoristics as analogue. Only the recording material is different. I do think that traditionalists will still be able to use analogue and maybe it will stay a creative fore of its own. I am still un sure about the longevity of digital film storage as digital formats change, at least with a negative you can scan it for as long as the life of the film possibly 60 years or more if well looked after.
It’s an interesting point though Nick, Polaroid is and has been another form of film art.
But the instance of seeing the result has of course been taken over by digital.

There is a major difference between a Paolo Roversi photograph than lets say a recent Annie Leibovitz. They are both lit fantastically, but the compression of the 8x10 lenses and painterly like effect that only an 8x10 or 4x5 could execute. What we are getting here and more so in the future are images that all look the same. Whether the photograph is lit or not is besides the point.

It's sad to see Polaroid go and move on and make television sets & DVD players. I really wish a current photographic company pick up those patents and continue to make pos/ neg polaroid and the larger formats as well.

What I am really afraid of is only 3 camera companies ( Canon, Nikon & Hasselblad/ Fuji ) in the future making professional cameras and lenses. And every image looking the same!

I know this is a slight aside from the general debate of this topic, but archiving digital is a total nightmare compared to archiving conventional photography.
Everything has to be backed up in different formats, CDs,tapes,hard drives. None of these can you simply just pick up in your hand and look at to see if the original is still ok. It is a full time job checking discs and once opened there is no way of telling wether they will corrupt the next time you open them.
My more paranoid side makes me wonder who is benefitting from this . Companies who 'specialise' in 'Data Management' are springing up and closing down all over the place like a new gold rush. If it is just to have a digital facsimilie of photography what is the point other than for companies who flog us more and more soon to be obsolete hardware to keep on fleecing us. Lets face it the old system worked ,so why are we replacing it. It is not something that has come from a demand from public. So I guess this meets up with some of the original questions of this post, why replace something that works with exactly the same thing but in digital,whereas with the possibilities of digital you can do so much more.