*NEWS* Cameraphones are killing the art! =O

[rexbobcat]

The death of photography: are camera phones destroying an artform? | Art and design | The Guardian


Those danged youths with their text machines and their internet boxes.

 

[ronlane]

Is this the 3rd or 4th time this year that photography has died? My boss is about to quit letting me off to attend it's funeral(s), lol

 

[ShootRaw]

Do not fret..As camera phones get better,so do Dslr's...Besides it is the Photographer that makes great pics...

 

[robbins.photo]

Wow.. really? I mean the poor horse is so dead already, do we really need to drag it back out for yet another beating?

 

[rexbobcat]

Wow.. really? I mean the poor horse is so dead already, do we really need to drag it back out for yet another beating?

Yes. You're not a real adult until you become jaded and cynical.

 

[amolitor]

There's no doubt that our relationship to pictures is changing, has changed, radically.

This is the important thing. The fact that we take pictures with this widget rather than that widget is irrelevant, except to makers of that widget and this widget. The fact that some tiny profession is getting blown up is again irrelevant, except to the people in that profession. The large social change in how we take, consume, and relate to pictures is what's interesting and important.

Pictures are now disposable, ephemeral, temporary. We relate to them as we relate to A New Thing, we glance at a picture, and then we want to see a new picture, another picture.

We used to view pictures as permanent, a vehicle for nostalgia, something to be preserved (possibly just jumbled into a shoebox) but some part of life frozen in amber forever.

It's a radical change. It's interesting. It might have some sort of long term cultural impact, but I dunno what that might be.

 

[robbins.photo]

Wow.. really? I mean the poor horse is so dead already, do we really need to drag it back out for yet another beating?

Yes. You're not a real adult until you become jaded and cynical.

Seriously, how many times have we run this exact same topic into the ground? Other than generating more clicks for this ridiculous doom and gloom bs article/blog post, what does it serve?

 

[rexbobcat]

Wow.. really? I mean the poor horse is so dead already, do we really need to drag it back out for yet another beating?

Yes. You're not a real adult until you become jaded and cynical.

Seriously, how many times have we run this exact same topic into the ground? Other than generating more clicks for this ridiculous doom and gloom bs article/blog post, what does it serve?

Mostly I just posted the article, because it's the kind of "gloom and doom" that I like to read and discuss...But really it's just so I can say "Oh look, another doomsday article." It's the end times!

You know...you don't HAVE to click on the thread...Seriously...

 

[robbins.photo]

Yes. You're not a real adult until you become jaded and cynical.

Seriously, how many times have we run this exact same topic into the ground? Other than generating more clicks for this ridiculous doom and gloom bs article/blog post, what does it serve?

It serves people who are not you.

It serves the blowhard that regurgitated this poorly researched hogwash, and that's about it. I can't even say the blowhard that wrote it, because frankly this exact same silliness has been written and rewritten and propogated over and over and over again even those it's totally false. Even 10 minutes worth of market research blows every assertion made by articles like this one out of the water. Yet for some bizarre reason they keep getting linked here over and over and over again for discussion. Just mind boggling really.

I mean if you weren't a regular here I'd get it if you'd missed the .. well 47-50 discussions we've had on this exact same topic already this month. But seriously? Well whatever purpose your attempting to serve with this, honestly I don't get it. But I'll let you go on with whatever this is - I'm sure Derrel will be more than happy to completley debunk this idiocy yet again when he gets a free minute or two.
</SPAN>

 

[amolitor]

It's interesting stuff. We're in the middle of (perhaps at the end of) a radical change in the way photography fits into society. It's just one aspect of the overal digitalization of affluent western society, but it's something of a microcosm.

Very few people seem to have much of a grasp of what's going on, they get stuck on "OH NOZE DSLRZ ARE GOING TO DIE!" like anyone even cares about that, and miss the the bigger picture entirely. Absolutely nobody at all seems to have a credible story for what it all means and what the endgame is. Whatever it is, being one of those exponential growth deals it is not sustainable, so, more change is due.

 

[rexbobcat]

Seriously, how many times have we run this exact same topic into the ground? Other than generating more clicks for this ridiculous doom and gloom bs article/blog post, what does it serve?

It serves people who are not you.

It serves the blowhard that regurgitated this poorly researched hogwash, and that's about it. I can't even say the blowhard that wrote it, because frankly this exact same silliness has been written and rewritten and propogated over and over and over again even those it's totally false. Even 10 minutes worth of market research blows every assertion made by articles like this one out of the water. Yet for some bizarre reason they keep getting linked here over and over and over again for discussion. Just mind boggling really.

I mean if you weren't a regular here I'd get it if you'd missed the .. well 47-50 discussions we've had on this exact same topic already this month. But seriously? Well whatever purpose your attempting to serve with this, honestly I don't get it. But I'll let you go on with whatever this is - I'm sure Derrel will be more than happy to completley debunk this idiocy yet again when he gets a free minute or two.

OMG INTERNET RAGE GRAAHAHDFHASKFNSAGIASBGRE

If this offends you so deeply...just don't...respond....

I, personally, can see where the article is coming from, but I also disagree with it. I'm not looking for a discussion per se. I just wanted to post a rather pompous article, and others can feel free to give their opinion...or not...

No need to fly into "I'VE HAVE ENOUGH" mode. That doesn't help anymore than posting this article apparently doesn't help.

 

[amolitor]

The article isn't as wrong as all that.

All you need to do it post a picture on TPF for critique to get a sense of how much people actually look at a picture these days. And TPF is people who are pretty serious about photography. The general population is being trained to glance at a photograph and to understand it entirely as another instance of a picture they've seen lots of times.

Oh look, it's Sandy and Alan at.. some party yesterday.
Oh look, it's an Ansel Adams style picture of a waterfall.
Oh look, it's insert archetype insert content insert date and surely that's all there is?

This is why people can take a terrible landscape, render it in high contrast b&w, and get OMG IT'S AWESOME!! replies. This is why when someone posts something that doesn't look like something there's a million copies of on flickr it gets panned. This is why people always want to correct your white balance for you. It's because we look at pictures not as themselves, but as a very thin veneer of differences applied to a bunch of stuff we're already seen. We look at pictures quickly, we apprehend them trivially, and we move on.

That's a problem for people who are trying to make art, or timeless pictures, or important pictures, or even pictures of important things.

It's not all digital's fault, but digital ain't helping.

 

[Derrel]

amolitor seems to be making a lot of good points here. Really big,important, critical points about the way western society now looks at pictures. But it's not really as much the camera-phone or smartphone that's the vehicle--it's social media AND also the "free and easy" picture taking that digital cameras have made possible. This sea change has been upwelling for years and years, and only now are we high enough to see what's happened.

 

[runnah]

Meh it's not all doom and gloom. Just as the VHS generation has brought us amazing filmmakers, the digital era has brought us wonderful photographers. Granted there is a lot more chaff mixed in with the wheat, it's still a good thing.

 

[amolitor]

Making a good movie is still amazingly hard work.