Two things you should read; this [coilhouse post][ch] introducing [“The Decline of Fashion Photography”][art].

[ch]: http://coilhouse.net/2007/11/24/the-decline-of-fashion-photography/
[art]: http://www.slate.com/features/010510_fashion-slide-show/01.htm

The main article traces one art form from the fifties to the present-day in twenty-eight photos and comments. Her argument is that the form has descended from a heyday to a low point nowadays, with either too little art, or too little fashion.

In a wider sense, it’s interesting to consider whether art forms generally go through such rises and falls. This has to be quite focussed; I think arguing for a golden age of cinema, or of music, would be ridiculous; but arguing for the heydey of zombie explotation movies, or mod, or house music, that’s possible.

For me, the interesting question is around sci-fi short fiction. Recently, it’s been [argued][we] and [riffed on][al] that science fiction short story mags like [Analog][an] have been declining in circulation; does this mean that form of written, printed short fiction drawing to a close? Is it being transformed by the internet? free electronic distribution of magazines like [hub][], reworking the form into [flash fiction][ff], and changing the medium by podcasting (eg [pseudopod][pp]) suggest the forms mutating rapidly and that the classic sub-10,000 word, printed paper story might well atrophy away. After all, while people might not be comfortable reading a whole book on a screen, they’ll read an awful lot of short pieces.

PS: I’d recommend [coilhouse][chm]; it’s a interesting art blog focussing on alt culture.

[we]: http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=5212
[chm]: http://www.coilhouse.net
[al]: http://www.hub-mag.co.uk/?p=11
[an]: http://www.analogsf.com/0712/issue_12.shtml
[pp]: http://pseudopod.org/
[ff]: http://www.365tomorrows.com/
[hub]: http://www.hub-mag.co.uk/