Every few months somebody declares photography dead. Phones killed it, AI killed it, nobody buys cameras anymore, the sky is falling. I have been hearing some version of this since I picked up a camera, and somehow I keep taking pictures.
Here is what I think. The camera industry is not what it was in 2008, and that is fine. The people who bought a DSLR to take two pictures of their kid at Christmas now use a phone, and good for them. What is left are the people who actually like cameras, and companies are finally making cameras for us instead of for everybody.
The future of photography is the same as the past of photography. Go outside with a camera and take pictures of things that interest you. That is it. That is the whole future.
Will AI generate a million perfect fake sunsets? Sure. Will anyone care in five years? Probably not the way they care about a real photo of a real place. A picture you took, standing there, breathing the air, is always going to beat a prompt.
So yes, there is a future. It looks a lot like the present, just with weirder lenses.
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