I think it’s true that technology is making photography obsolete. iPhones, Facebook, Instagram, and falling prices on Digital SLRs are making everybody turn into a photographer.
On the one hand, I think this helps the medium. More people are interested in photography than ever before, and despite all of the above crap, people still know good photography from bad.
Well, most people. I was, in all seriousness, asked a couple weeks ago by someone, “Why can’t I find an art gallery that will display my iPhone art?”
And then there are people that don’t know shit about photography, and don’t seem that interested in studying, but they buy an expensive camera and call themselves photographers, anyway. Case in point: Not so many years ago, a lens flare from the sun in a photo would garner one an “F” in art school. But this weekend, I saw a “professional” photographer purposefully Photoshoping fake flares into his photos. It looked ghastly, just fucking horrible.
This depressed me. It makes me worry, profusely, about the future of my chosen medium. It makes me wonder why I’m striving so hard to keep learning and keep improving and to be as good as I can be when other people are just throwing crap out there and expect to be respected for it.
I’m sure I’ll be writing more about this in the coming weeks, as my thoughts come together. I just had to get this mini-rant off my chest.
#1 by Phillip Bernal on June 27, 2012 - 12:03 pm
It is that VERY passion to perfect your art: most who press that button are not artist, we are playing and hopeing others will like it? and sometimes they do…
Scot: I see a lot of art all Fucken DAY!!!! and your work is Fantastic!!!! we live in world of instant gratification. your art is not that…. and Thank You for that. Follow the path your life needs to take you and if that means walking past the cammera know that it’s the right thing to do at the right time….who knows in the future it may come back…
Blessings
#2 by Chris on June 27, 2012 - 12:26 pm
Every so often I have the same thought, but just because photography is the hobby of the day (remember roller blading and that stupid electronic pet that you could still kill?) doesn’t mean, as you say, that people aren’t actually good at it. So my cell phone takes pictures (which I was very glad for when I forgot my actual camera when I went to New England last week) — all it does is make me miss my real camera more.
Lots of people paint, only a few are actually artists. The good stuff will always rise above – and yours is good stuff. That you strive to be better makes it noticeable. (Heck, you’ve already had a restaurant full of queens staring at you during a meal, and you know they’re all on Grindr staring at poorly lit photos all the time. Even they knew the difference).
Now, about David and that underwear he insists on wearing in all his photos