Are we too self-impressed? A philosophical question.

[tsiklonaut]

I've had a long period where I really liked to shoot people. The last couple of years I've been mainly focusing on landscapes and nature. But I've posted an occasional portrait or a person on the picture and noticed views and faves nearly double instantly, despite I think it's not among the best shot, not even near.

Looking at my own or other's work I've come up with a theory that most of people like (more likely: prefer-) to see a person or people on the picture, or in fact on any other grapical art. I know it's not nice to approximate but with exceptions excluded whether it's a nice half-naked young chick with a stereotypically "sexy" body (that somehow tend to get the most clicks or faves) or a bearded, stereotypically "photogenic" old man, they apparently tend to dominate in the interest of the 'public', per average at least.

Yet I've seen jaw dropping amazing landscape or nature photography or even from space/cosmos, where pictures literally draw poems how much is out there to learn and experience, but get little or no interest at all. They just don't captivate the imagination of people while a half-naked superstar chick does.

I know, i know... things reflect things - popular photography ought to look like pop music, with overcompressed 1-2-word verses, a cliché if you like, the same loops over-and-over and there are billions who follow... Remember the last megahit song playing on your radio today? Music that switches your brain off since there's nothing much to listen to music-wise, relativity aside.

This brings me to the question, are we humans (speaking again in bold averages) too self-impressed?

I mean do we spend too much of our resource looking at ourselves or our own kin while we should spend at least some of it somewhere else more useful?

I noticed this phenomena when I googled for nice landscape pictures but instead there was a deafening noise of people's pictures they aren't supposed to be there. There are over 7 billion of us on the planet, overpopulating fast and photography is getting more popular among us, you see "party" or "Facebook" style pictures everywhere, from endless selfies in zillion settings, "I was here" (toilet selfies seems to be the new trend) to the usual family pictures of Sunday's out.

Imagine if there were camoflaged extraterrestrials with millions of years of evolution and social behaviour development observing us all around us every day, what they'd make of us? An egoistic self-obsessed exovert beings who can't look out from themselves? Where every ego tries to downgrade the other, to show off, to step on another, the one who makes more useless noise get's more attention?

No pun intended, just a philosophical question. 🙂

 

[kennylovrin]

I think you are right, as a whole we are all a bunch of self absorbed assholes. I may sound sarcastic, but I am serious.

 

[mfogiel]

We are human Margus. Being human means first of all, that we relate, speak, interact with each other, and this is the single most important part of our genetic make up, which has made us masters of the Earth. This social character of ours is reflected in the visual preferences. Landscapes or photos of places/objects with no human presence cannot really evoke in us as thought provoking reflections, as photos that relate to us directly. Within this, you will obviously have more faves if you shoot a "product" ready to be consumed: naked woman or well dressed James Bond in his Aston Martin (women are more demanding).
This is the first part of the answer.
The second part is, that no matter how clever your framing and choice of light in Landscape, landscape simply IS. Remember the story of the monkey selfie, for which the owner of the camera did not get the rights? One day, when you go to Yosemite, your Google glass will automatically make landscape shots in prescribed places, according to Ansel Adams catalogue, and people will stop buying landscape photographs altogether on the grounds, that they do not require any creative effort.

 

[daveleo]

I agree that people are too self-absorbed, but there is only a weak connection between that fact and the kinds of pictures that people like to look at.

I think that the mass of the worlds' people view pictures with other people in them as "personal" . . . they feel like they are connecting with the people in the picture . . . they feel like they are embedded in those people. When they look at a landscape, SOME viewers imagine themselves embedded in the landscape, but MOST viewers feel like they are outside of it looking in on it.

People pictures are more personal.

 

[f16sunshine]

Seeking out others is part of our basic survival programming.
For a man or a woman .. when sees a nubile/virile image of human an un-solicited and automatic response is initiated.
This response is also present although less powerful even when the sexual connotation is removed.
The search for a suitable partner to aid in continuing the survival of our line is constant.
As a result our minds are constantly looking at and evaluating other people even if we are not searching for a mate.
It happens between the genders and within them.
Looking at people and observing people is as human as it gets.
It's biological and has nothing to do with any "negative" sort of Vanity or self indulgence.
I think it's risky to over-think it. There is not any more complex answer to find.
Simply put... we need each other and so... seek each other out.
It extends to photography. Enjoy participating in the extension.

That does not mean this response can not or is not exploited. It is in fact constantly so.
As a Photographer one has a choice to point. We can take an innocuous photograph of another human.
What the viewer thinks or feels while viewing it we have no control of.

Cheers

 

[gilgsn]

Being self-centered is inevitable. We each are the center of our universe, or universes. Nothing wrong with that. You can be "intelligently" self-centered or "stupidly" self-centered, those are the as*holes.. So, even though we can experience empathy and kinship, we are still relating everything else to ourselves. That is a condition of being self-aware.

One area of being self-impressed that I see can be a problem is when people think their work is great because nobody has told them otherwise. That is mostly true of later generations who have been told that they are the best thing since sliced bread and they can do no wrong. That since kindergarden... It is a typically American phenomenon. I mean, they even have "creative math" now! I have seen kids on Facebook suddenly change their page name to so-and-so-photography and post horrendous photos. They get nothing put high praise from their friends and go on charging high prices and deliver crap to clients. They probably just bought a DSLR and became an instant-photographer...

Personally, if I post a crappy photo, I'd like someone to tell me, and why they think so, and maybe some advise. I'd say to everyone, stop being so darn politically correct and tell people when their work, and why not, their behavior isn't up to par.

Gil.

 

[Takkun]

First--I can attest to toilet selfies, after a quick survey of my Facebook feed.

Second, it may have been 4am, but I thought I remember replying to a thread (started by Roger, I think) about 99% of work out there being crap. I think that still holds true, no matter what, i.e., it's not necessarily getting worse. I guess that's related somehow. We as humans always have been self obsessed, self congratulatory, and self-preserving, more or less. That's human nature, and I don't think society becoming more civilized fully represses that.

When I had a show opening, I remarked to my mother, a painter, that I'd get incredibly excited when an attendee would show genuine appreciation for traditional photography among a sea of people coming up to tell me that they were a photographer too and I should see their work. She chalked it up to these days everyone claims they're a photographer, and images are disposable, to which I rebutted that Kodak snapshots have been around for a hundred years, and so have magazines, and vacation slideshow parties aren't anything new.
So regardless, it's refreshing when someone rises above self-interest in that way.


Mostly unrelated, but as a traditional (i.e., mostly representative, non-abstract/conceptual) photographer, I often wonder what I'm actually artistically contributing beyond merely conveying a breathtaking scene created by nature that I happened to witness. But hey, I guess the proof of artistry is self-doubt 😉

 

[Roger Hicks]

Varies. Often, sticking to a theme (as distinct from shooting whatever takes our eye) solves the problem. See http://www.rogerandfrances.com/bodyofwork.html

Cheers,

R.

 

[DNG]

Toilet Selfies ???? Haven't seen any.... yet....😱

 

[fireblade]

Humans are flesh and flesh has its desires, and it is because of this that we have become a**holes, selfcentred and to the extreme, evil.
Photography is an expression of oneself, his/her inner spirit which manifests itself outwardly.
Hence, sex sells, photos of girls sell, whether it be to money or the mind of man.
The world has turned to sh*t.....that's enough of philosophy. 🙂

 

[Godfrey]

We are as self-centered as we are. It is neither good nor bad.
A good artist follows the ideas and music in their head, without heeding what the mass of others think about it.

G

 

[thegman]

I think you've only to visit Facebook to see how narcissistic people can be. The level of 'look at me' can be striking.

I think pictures of ourselves and our activities are good, even a picture of a girlfriend in a restaurant can bring back great memories. But they are certainly overdone, I don't need 100 photos to bring back a memory, 1 or 2 will be fine.

 

[daveleo]

^ well, yeh, but the whole idea of social media is to share pictures and stories. what else would you post to something called "facebook" ?

I don't do facebook but the people I know who do see their facebook pictures as very short-lived snaps. To them the picture is a momentary conversation, forgotten tomorrow. That's a far cry from (and an unfair comarison to) intending to create a great enduring landscape image.

I do think the OP overstated the issue, but okay, we all do that to spark a conversation.

 

[jbf]

I think I am the exact opposite.

I am incredibly self-critical.

But not to burn any bridges or hurt peoples feelings, I think it takes people to be incredibly self-critical in order to succeed in a difficult / hard artistic career.


Granted ultimately its all what you want out of it. If your trying to be a professional artist, then you have to be your hardest critic. If your doing it just for fun and enjoyment, then really its a moot point. Do what makes you happy.

 

[JChrome]

So many thoughts on why we love the face.

A friend offered me a pretty good one once:

The human face can be seen with only three dots. Just think of a power outlet. We are hardwired from conception to seek faces and apply emotions to them. We love faces like we love a surfeit of sugar. It's biology.

Regarding photos without them, I really love images of winding rivers and canyons... But sometimes I see ladies body parts in those...

Biology never quits 🙂

 

[jarski]

No comment on landscapes vs. nudes question, but seems that everyone want to take a stand nowadays, not sit in the audience. Yesteryears, there were still people willing to be the audience, their entire lives. But now we have million little stands with a performer/artist/actor on it 🙂

 

[35mmdelux]

didn't some guy in NY say something about people having fame for 15 minutes?

 

[Pherdinand]

yes, we are.

 

[Pherdinand]

No comment on landscapes vs. nudes question, but seems that everyone want to take a stand nowadays, not sit in the audience. Yesteryears, there were still people willing to be the audience, their entire lives. But now we have million little stands with a performer/artist/actor on it 🙂

i like this answer 🙂 i agree 100%

 

[kuuan]

hopefully soon in life we realize the horrorshow we make our world into because, as most usually we do, we step on others to elevate ourselves, that we are self centered and kill to live. Some seemingly never do and continue that path forever, but many do and ever strive to become less harming but more humble, respecting, affectionate, caring social beings.

Unfortunately TV series like 'Dallas' asf. asf. come across like a concerted propaganda effort to spread to the whole world an attitude of being brute in the persuit of egoistic goals. I don't see wanting to see humans in photos as an indication for being self centered though, certainly not in a personal sense, possibly in a sense of unduely elevating the human species over nature. Shows that are disguised as celebrating nature like 'discovery channel' and even 'national geographic', at least here in Asia, are like one big promotion of the attitude of brute and ruthless conquering, using and destroying nature, mostly for personal gains.

Viewing explore fortunately I don't see that! Above all I see landscapes, nature, architecture, animals, often a celebration of the beauty of nature, and almost no people at all ( at least right now ) check it out and see yourself: https://www.flickr.com/explore
same holds true for my own photos that have made it to explore, only about a 1/4 of them feature people.

Helen I am also surprised that you say your 'film' photos get much less attention than your digital ones. I see many photos which I suppose would not get much attention if taken on digital, because they aren't all that great, but they do because they had been taken on film. Possibly because of the colors, vintage look, but generally I believe that many viewers, knowing that using film is more involving and means not being able to click away 1000nds of times without causing costs, look at photos taken on film more appreciative, often less critical.

For todays mainstream taste, in color, film photos might offer too little DR though. Viewing 'explore' I see lot's of HDR, photos with maximum dynamic range and details with mostly oversaturated but rather original colors. Possibly it's because landscape and architectural photos do well in HDR that they come up a lot.