We are NOT all photographers.
Posted by nito, Fri Mar 30 14:37:00 UTC 2007
The last 6 years has seen an explosion in the amount of photographic imagery that surrounds our ever increasingly digital lives. Now, anyone with 50 quid can afford a relatively high-resolution camera. With 200 (or less, if you go to ebay) you can purchase a consumer level SLR camera, and with a few hundred more you can step up to the plate with a technological neckpiece that, 10 years ago, would have had a paparazzi plotting a mugging.
But, Mega-pixels do not a photographer make and having the latest Nikoanon 120DE with its 25 megapixel sensor will not turn you from a happy snapper into an Adams, Cunningham, Mapplethorpe, Modotti, Weegee or Weston (to name a few too many old classics for such a short piece!). Proof for this theory is kindly provided by web 2.0 photo sites like Zooomr and Flickr (to name only two of many) where a profligation (894,000) of cat photos does nothing to disabuse one of this notion. No, really, you don’t want to see my cat, you do? Oh, Okay!
The ever expanding net is littered with photographic imagery taken by everyone, their granny and their dog. Read the ‘about’ section on the blogs of many a Technologist, Programmer, or Social commentator, and you will invariably find ‘photography’ listed as an interest or hobby (who? moi?), and it’s now de rigeur to have a Flickr widget on your blog (even i’ll have one - oneday!). But guys, listen, a photo of “my desk”, is stretching the bounds of what anyone is going to find interesting. don’t get me onto photos of “monitor screens”.
So what prompted this rant?
Brilliance. You can easily lose 3 hours on that site. These people -are- photographers. Go look. I urge you.
It’s not all bad though (did I say it was bad?)! Just consider, for a moment, the depth and richness of information our ancestors will have in 100+ years time; all of that social history captured, stored, and replicated like a virus in a multitude of digital media; all of those remade TV programs; all of those social history lecturer jobs; etc… And of course (more frivolously), there’s no longer any need to wade through Auntie Jane’s holiday snaps, with one eye on the clock and one eye on the stack of 3 sorted photo albums, looking like you’re really interested (why don’t you just say ‘look, this is boring auntie jane?’); ask for a link to her photosite! If she doesn’t have one, tell her to get one! We’ve all got them now! I could soak up more of my time (and yours I’m hoping) extrapolating on the value in all of this digital information, but I’ll leave that for another day.
And, drifting away from the general theme of photography, there’s all that sharing and togetherness, and the proof that it’s no longer all about me me me (google only returns 1000 images). and really much more about you (116,000,000 images). Come on, feel the love ;-)
Comments, thoughts?
Here here. I agree with every sentiment!
hear hear!