As many of the respondents answered, of course this is a troubling, problematic or even strange question to ask because photography is obviously still functioning in the world in many different ways. Many of the artist and critics to respond to the question commented on the fact that the definition of the type of photography in question needs to be provided. Everyone acknowledges that yes, we now live in a world where so many things outside of the realm of art incorporate photographs. So then it can be inferred or narrowed down that we are at least talking about photography as an art form, even though that can be segmented into many divisions as well. Many of the respondents bring up the fact that it is the institutions proposing this question and that the institutions at the same time decide what kinds of photography function as art. Again this is problematic but it is also the way things have always been, what institutions see as art is at least somewhat along the lines of how photography has always functioned in the art world.
So here I am three and a half years into my BFA in Photography degree (and photography being one of the few things I have had a strong passion for throughout high school as well) and I am being asked is photography over? Well I sure as hell hope that it isn't, because if so I have wasted a lot of time and money, is my first thought. Maybe it's due to my love for the medium and my devotion to it in the path that I have taken for myself, but I find that I am oddly optimistic and sure that, No photography is not over and I will attempt to place myself with those who agree.
Vince Aletti spoke in his response about the disappearance of processes through out photography's history. Daguerreotypes, tintypes, cyanotypes, albumen, salt, platinum-palladium and collodion processes are all a thing of the past compared to most photography today, but what about photographers like Sally Mann? Old processes die out but some people still hold on to them. The same will most likely go for silver gelatin and traditional color darkroom printing, someone will still continue to use them. He says "There's never been just one kind of photography, and now there are many."Many as in now digital has taken over but maybe it should not be so feared, maybe it is not so new or threatening. Aletti comments on how photography has never been fully truthful so we should not fear digitals turn away from the indexical. He says, "photography isn't merely a window on the world, it's a portal into the unconscious." According to him the camera can be "a recoding device and a creative tool." He thinks that photography will only expand and change with the introduction of digital a new process and I agree, I feel that we are in a time of transition not completion.
Sally Mann (example of an old process used in the contemporary.)
Curtis Mann (example of using completely different and experimental technique.)
Kelli Connell (an example of digital aspects in photography moving in a successful direction.)
I also found Jennifer Blessing to be very agreeable. In her response she brings up how photography has always been associated with an aspect of death. Photography is able to capture a moment that has since passed after viewing the photograph, many critics like Barthes have brought this up as well. She also says that many types of photography have died before and this will continue to happen but yet whatever photography will become it will still always be tied to the common line that has passed down through the ages. She says it will always be "lens based" and a photograph will always ae connected to a specific time in some manner. 
Peter Galassi also thinks that photography is not over. He talks about how it has become a useful tool in todays life so of course it is not dead and it is so useful that it will never be dead. I appreciated Galassi's comparison of photography to the rest of the art world, like painting or scultpture, both of which have gone through their major changes. I'm sure that in the time that Jackson Pollock and many other abstract expressionist painters first arrived on the scene that many traditionalist though that painting as they knew it was over. In support of that photography is much younger than any other medium so perhaps we are just now reaching our rebelious teenage years where the medium is branching out or changing from what it used to be. Galassi sees this concern about photography as something that has already been worried about in the art world's past. 
Blake Stimson agrees with me on the fact that photography is probably not over but is only just beginning and like Galassi he aligns photography's growth through time with painting. He like many others says that the institutions give photography context and I believe that this can not be helped, it happens even if we do not like it. Stimson focuses on photography's important role with history and society like many others had. He strangely mentions photography's perhaps important role over social media at the end of his response. 
Corey Keller notes the need to define photography and the use of photography by virtually everyone now a day. She also brings up that it's challenges today are not so different than they have ever been. She mentions Stieglitz and his Pictoralist movement and strive to make photography recognized as a real art form. I think the real question is, what makes photography art now? Photography has always operated outside of the art worlds standards, so how does it function now that so much has changed. Keller also comments on photos other role to take a political stance. So does this mean that photography wither has to be aesthetically pleasing or politically powerful, there is not yes or no in reality but yet both do function in the world of fine art photography. There are photography who have done and are doing both these things and then photographers who do both separately of course. There are thousands of images that just function as conceptually and aesthetically pleasing art. There are images like that of James Nachtwey or Gillian Laub. Robert Mapplethorpe made both aesthetically pleasing images and images that brought up social issues (even if he did not intend it) or Alec Soth who has done both as well.
Alec Soth, Untitled From Dog Days of Bogota
Robert Mapplethorpe, Self Portrait in Drag 1980Douglas Nickel is the last person I found myself agreeing with. Nickel says many of the same things as the other but his key point i found interesting was, "for whom", for whom is photography over for and for whom is it in question? This again references the institutions and the general public again. I think that photography won't be dead until artist are completely done with picking up cameras and shooting with them no matter what process or format they use. I also think that photography will function for years and years outside of the art world.
