Why Vincent Laforet is wrong

I just read Vincent Laforet’s post that cameras will only be for professionals, soon.
That everyone else will shoot with mobile phone, because the mini computer in your pocket has the tools to capture, tweak and share quickly and easily, which is what the masses want to do.

I think he underestimates amateurs with passion.

There are no shortage of people who don’t/can’t make a living from photography but want shallow depth of field. Others who understand great sports shots are usually made at over 300mm, or under 24 – so they buy the lenses required.
Indeed, better cameras in mobile phones, while they have killed the cheap compact, have inspired thousands to lift their photography game and shoot with system cameras.
Yes, the camera manufacturers have been slow to respond, haven’t built the app ecosystems for phones and should have better integration with mobile phones by now.
I still can’t simply have images automagically appear in my photos app on my phone, but that’s coming.
No, no camera manufacturer has produced a camera which accepts the iPhone to be slid in at the back to becoming the viewfinder and interface.
But I do have camera which can send the images to my phone pretty quickly, something I hadn’t experienced until recently without using a WiFi enabled SD card. It’s technology which will get better.
I also haven’t used a mobile phone with a decent built in optical zoom, or an EVF, or an off-camera flash, or a bounce flash…
I make part of my income from the photographs I shoot. But I buy way more gear than I need for work, and some of that comes down the passion, for the gear and the images they help to create.
My most recent stills camera purchase was the Leica D-Lux (typ 109). It’s a beautiful camera, one which invariably has a polarizing filter on the front, something difficult to achieve with an iPhone.
I also use it for 4K video.
Phones will never replace a ‘real’ camera for photographers. For most people aren’t photographers, they are just everyday people who take pictures. Photographers, amateur and professional, make images – from highly constructed scenes to controlled slices of the action, those with the passion to produce beautiful images which stand out from the dross which only means anything to the immediate friends and family of the shooter.
In the same way I can cook a great meal but I’m not a chef, most people these days can take a nice picture, but they are not photographers. For that, you need the passion, the eye, the skills – and most of the time, a device called a camera.