tangible images
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- epigraph
Sure there are lots of discussions on the topic, but I'm curious what everyone thinks.
The vast majority of photographic images the collective world produces will never be realized as a tangible object. Prints, posters, photo books, magazines.
I think the main reason for this is that the majority of the images produced today are just not important enough. They're fucking mundane.
Producing a photographic image used to require decision making, and finite resources. You only committed to making a photo if it really mattered to you.
Do you think there will be a collective shift towards creating images with purpose, placing more value on tangible photographic objects like prints, and books?
If not, what's gonna happen?
- ********0
IMHO
"You only committed to making a photo if it really mattered to you."
Not really, people shot just as much garbage on film as they do today on digital.
"Do you think there will be a collective shift towards creating images with purpose, placing more value on tangible photographic objects like prints, and books?"
Nope. The photographic print is a dieing medium.
- the % crap might have been about the same, but people were snapping way less than they are today.epigraph
- do you have actual stats?********
- bigtrick0
why would there be a shift towards creating images with purpose, when everything indicates that images are being treated more and more as a banal commodity?
- bjladams0
@betelgeuse:
idk man, i shoot a lot more because of digital than i did on film. i was a lot more hesitant with film as it cost money every click... i know memory card costs money too, but one memory card gets a lot more action then the =$ of film did.- True. But it doesn't mean that what's being shot on digital is in anyway more thought out or important. There's just more of it.********
- it.********
- it.********
- it.scarabin
- True. But it doesn't mean that what's being shot on digital is in anyway more thought out or important. There's just more of it.
- epigraph0
bigtrick, you hit the nail on the head that images are being treated like a banal commodity, but I wonder if tangible photographs which carry a story and history of their own will come to be revered again. What's old is new again.
- a photo really does loose it's soul when the only place you ever see it is on a screen.epigraph
- ********0
"What's old is new again."
As photography becomes more banal and easy to do there will be those who seek out old methods and channels of creating images. But I think these people will be the exception to the rule.
- epigraph0
The world is for all intents and purposes one big collective video camera nowadays. No moment is left untouched.
There has got to come a point when photos collectively become as boring as the majority of real, mundane life. Then actual image making with purpose will start to stand out. no?
- bjladams0
got a lot of friends who own dlsr's and fancy lenses and take them everywhere and tell everyone that they're a photographer... most of them think that the setting with the flower is for taking pics of flowers, and the one of the mountain is for mountains only... then they post the results of facebook and it makes me sad...
- SteveJobs0
i don't think the medium itself is to blame. it's the fact that you can see so much good and bad photography all over the web so effortlessly. it's hard to appreciate the art for what it once was, printed or not.
- it is easier to share a picture and also take it. hence, it feels like a flood of shit.dibec
- dibec0
i disagree.
Sure. Some asshat get an iPhone and load some photo app and woo-hoo-woo. Ask that person to take a photo of something, see what happens. That is the true talent. Photographers are able to take pictures, anywhere, everywhere. Your asshats get lucky. Give them another camera, see what they can do without their apps and woo-hoo-woo.
- ^ can.dibec
- what? i know there's a lot of asshats with iphones but SLRs are really no different. you just have to be slightly richer to buy one.kingsteven
- totally. but most people don't buy a iphone for the camera. i felt it was a better example. ;)dibec
- iPhone or DSLR w/e. I still get the point. Random million snaps will make a good pic. But consistently good images is true skill.Hombre_Lobo
- dibec0
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- ********0
I personally love the fact that just anyone can pick up a camera and take photos. The most important photo is the one you take yourself.
- epigraph0
I agree dibec 100%, it's a pretty well accepted fact. What is the mindset of the average person going to be in 5 years? How are they going to want to view and appreciate the skilled images you have created for them?
- bigtrick0
@dibec:
i'm with betelgeuse here. it's great that more people get to take pictures! and, more people are discovering their own visual talents as photographers now - a natural side effect of having more people with cameras.
the proportion of crap pictures to good pictures is higher now, but the overall number of good pictures being created is much higher too, i think.
and finally, i don't begrudge people their instagram and whatnot. i'm happy that they get to make something that they like, even if it's via filters (:
- bjladams0
^ it also pushes real photographers to refine themselves so that they stick out above the grade.
- ********0
Growing up there were several occasions where my entire family would get all dressed up and have a professional portrait session done.
All of them look dated and extremely cheesy.
They don't even come close to anything that my dad would do with his cheap point and shoot. I'm very lucky to have had a "snap happy" family. I have countless of the cuff shots of my family that I wouldn't trade for all the studio shots money could buy.
- what do you do with all the photos?epigraph
- I have digital and analogue copies of them.********
- dibec0
I am not against people taking photos. I totally support that. Please do not get me wrong.
I think I can relate it to it best to graphic design pre-computers. It took a lot of time to create something without a computer, it was painful, well thought out, etc. Film photography was no different. You had to know what you were doing. With technology it has made it effortless, hence diminishing the value of certain styles and techniques.
- bigtrick0
slight tangent:
"It would be years past before I finally got my hands on DIGITAL, it would be 2003 when i decided to save some money to buy my very first digital which would be the Canon 300D, a standard zoom - EF-S 18 - 55 mm, another EF 75-300, and a Sandisk Ultra II 512MB, that time, it cost an arm and a half of a leg :). After work in the afternoon, I went to Glenview Park District in Glenview, Illinois and explored the new science of White Balance, ISO settings and the likes.
Downtown Chicago was a favorite location too."
- scarabin0
good photography isn't being threatened.
no matter how many photos are taken all over the world, there will always be the cream of the crop, and by looking at the numbers alone you can be sure that some of it will be genuinely moving photography forward in terms of thinking, execution, style, etc.
access to cheap equipment (camera, apps, whatever) will also inspire amateurs and help them take what might normally be mere dabbling to another level. another good thing.
also, the internet makes sharing photos easy and finding good ones even easier. we're not going to be inundated with crap, we'll just be better at sorting through it
- ********0
