What's changing is how we "consume" images. At one point, they were the equivalent of bringing out the fine china and silverware. Now it's a quick grab with a plastic spoon. And how much precision and care are you (or anyone) going to put on the latter?
YES, it has taken me a good, long while to come to what I think is a solid understanding of the changing ways we consume/use/share/show images now, as we head toward the middle of the second decade of the 21str century. There have been some VERY important, really HUGELY fundamental shifts in how images are shot; processed;displayed;archived;shown;shared;thrown away or "filed".
The Online Photographer on Tuesday, May 27, 2014 published a piece entitled
Is This 'A Great Time For Photography"?
I think people here should read it.
The Online Photographer: Is This 'A Great Time for Photography'?
And, vis a vis the change in how we "consume" images; I think it's important to note that the "voices giving C&C" that we used to have here in TPF, well, a LOT of those voices had some pretty serious prejudice against Hipstamatic, Instagram, Facebook, and smart phone pictures. Not to name names, but there are people in this very thread that have shown a consistent dismissal of cell phone images, Instagram-type filtering, and so on. Really, pretty much bashing the whole new way, the whole new tools and mobile end of photographic consuming, because it's apparently deemed not worthy...it's not "what THEY like", and other spurious justifications to dismiss the new way of consuming images.
Again, you know, I don't want to make this into a big pi&& and moan session. I'll return to something I wrote in my first post in this thread: I think many people would do well to shoot cameras that shoot in a native square format. And short of an old Mamiya like gsgary and limr have, or minicoop's old Hassy 1600F, the cheapest and most readily available square-format camera is the one in the Instagram application. I dunno...I started with a 6x6 cm camera, then went to 135,then got a series of old TLR's, then went to Instamatic 126 square. I really think a LOT of people would honestly benefit by shooting SQUARES. I've recently gotten my old square-format Bronica and my Yashica 635 TLR out, and am starting to think about square composition more so than I have since the early 1990's when I retired the Bronica.
you know what it is.
it's all crap. Not the image quality per se, that is improved. But the entire element of photography itself and the images now.
Think about it, some chick goes to the store and buys a dslr. goes online here, gets critiqued on her images, like it is serious or something. Then she notices the other billions of images online, and realizes they are a dime a dozen. comes back on tpf, looks back at all the photos, processing, whatever. It it suddenly clicks to her. May take two years, maybe three, five? It is all crap.
Many images are purely consumer driven , driven by the economy. CRAP. Doesn't matter how good the images are. CRAP. Critique to you hearts content. They are the byproduct of our system hardly art most of it. So this woman (sorry I called her a chick) starts catching on to this. Look in the gallerys, look at the contests. Mostly CRAP. Copies, of copies of processed copies. It's like a sick joke. how is my photo? Looks great, like all the other billions. That's the critique. which basically means, IT ISNT WORTH A DAMN THING. what are we trying to teach everyone? To make another billion processed images that looks like the other fifteen billion ones? And some take this crap WAY to serious on this site. Like they think they are ansel adams or something themselves. And what is scary is most of the billions of images are probably better than theirs. Yet they give advice, on giving advice, on how things work...
now lets think about this.......
yep, don't mean a damn thing.
All that matters, is it is worth something to YOU WHO TOOK IT.
Plastic silverware run off a assembly line fits perfectly well for plastic images run off a assembly line.
"hey, lets critique and try to make the perfect photo"
hell I dunno, why not just start with trying to make a photo worth something at all...
cheap plastic cellphone cameras are perfect for taking cheap plastic photos. Maybe most people should just do that.
so this woman starts off thinking "hey I want to learn photography!"
until she realizes, wow, it is all processed crap.
And if you are going to move up from that level, you got to go to animation, video, somewhere else. Really. Even that being overdone to a extent.
Hardly a thing original anymore. And more you look at others work, more you copy it. crap copying crap. Not that the work isn't good, but you get to a certain extent, where there is a SO MUCH OF IT, it all become crap. Dime store images, except worth less than a dime.
There is extremely little appreciation for modern photography or the digital processed images that go with it, to put it mildly, it is more on the level of entertainment value or consumer sales than anything. i was just discussing this with another photgrapher a few hours ago, movie to video productions he is. Discussing walking taking photos, i told him it is all a freakn cliche, a cheap processed one. He suggested i look at his website (so there ya go). Ain't none of it real. i want something new. To get that it has to be old and reborn. He suggested i build on what is already there. Make what is there, even better.
build on what, i couldnt tell ya. Can you build on a pile of crap?
Digital image that never makes it to print, is like critiquing the color texture of a turd right before you flush it. sure, might be a good looking turd, But looks like most of the rest. now pull the handle and send it on it's way.
people caught on to this, "everyone does photography" thinking only a few years back. Now it is closer to "it ain't fukn worth nothn!"
People dont even look at it as real now. you get maybe "that cool" or "neat". i can't even knock facebook anymore i've seen some better photos on facebook recently than on here.
if people stop doing this, it wouldnt shock me at all how many thousand copycat images do you want to make? Me, this is something else for me.
sad to say, but you know what it really is? society grew out of it. The difference between having the bottle of milk brought to your door or going to the supermarket and picking one out of the thousand jugs. Promoting the value of photography is like promoting corporate supermarkets and those gallons of milk. It just wont ever be the same. so you want almond, one percent two percent, chocolate, skim, dry ....?
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/35/35964-c65699557292548e7f4d384b3ca48534.jpg?1734167819)
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/35/35963-4809c92024a0e6355dd194caf9297701.jpg?1734167812)
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/42/42269-bc38cb35884d46241dcf3623b338b43b.jpg?1734176665)
