GSNfan
Well-known
Do still photographs make a difference anymore, or with the deluge of images from all over the place we're just too overhwlemed by imagery to be able to focus on any substance in the visual media in general, let alone still images?
And if you feel still images make no difference anymore, then what do you foresee as a possible future for still photography as a medium to inform and communicate?
I'm unsure and therefore would really like to know what others think.
And if you feel still images make no difference anymore, then what do you foresee as a possible future for still photography as a medium to inform and communicate?
I'm unsure and therefore would really like to know what others think.
antiquark
Derek Ross
You tell me...
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Some are overwhelmed; some aren't. I suspect it's down to how good your 'filter' is for ignoring sheer volume. I can ignore an awful lot of rubbish, and still be moved by a great picture.
Something else that occurred to me today was that many of our most vivid memories are very like still pictures: that very moment when we first become aware of something. Maybe that is the definition of the decisive moment.
Cheers,
R.
Something else that occurred to me today was that many of our most vivid memories are very like still pictures: that very moment when we first become aware of something. Maybe that is the definition of the decisive moment.
Cheers,
R.
markwatts
Mark Watts
video from cellphone to multi thousand dollar professional gear makes a great documentary and news tools, but I think a still image still captures a mood, emotions, beauty, horror...more memorably than any other medium. Such is the worldwide availability of video images that perhaps the photograph has become even more striking an image.
Michael Da Re
Well-known
I don't think you will find to many members here that will tell you that stills don't matter anymore. I've always figured that if I have to question that what I do is worth doing then maybe I shouldn't be doing it.
Michael
Michael
TaoPhoto
Documentary Photographer
It seems that many people are waiting for the end of still photography. Yes, we are deluged with images, given cell phones, compact digital cameras, and the fact that every tourist seems to have a DSLR with a huge zoom hanging on it. Add to that the fact that just about anyone can make and upload a video these days. Still, the fact that everyone can take a picture does not mean that everyone is a photographer. The fact that everyone can pick up a paint brush does not mean that everyone is a painter.
And like painting, though photography came along, painting is still a going art form, with artists and shows and buyers and sellers. Still photography isn't being replaced by anything, it's simply that the field of image creation is growing around it. There is no real evolution in art: every art form that has ever been popular is still with us today, still changing minds and lives.
And like painting, though photography came along, painting is still a going art form, with artists and shows and buyers and sellers. Still photography isn't being replaced by anything, it's simply that the field of image creation is growing around it. There is no real evolution in art: every art form that has ever been popular is still with us today, still changing minds and lives.
GSNfan
Well-known
A paintings could never be painted at the same speed as a single photograph, so for every painting/drawing no matter how ordinary that have ever been produced, there are billions and billions of still photographs.
I guess, what I'm trying to say is that still images are too many, too ubiquitous, too easily available, and too easily producible for still photography to any longer exert a defining role as it did in the past.
We take photos simply for our own pleasure and the chances of our images making any inroad in the collective memory is very remote, in fact almost impossible.
I guess, what I'm trying to say is that still images are too many, too ubiquitous, too easily available, and too easily producible for still photography to any longer exert a defining role as it did in the past.
We take photos simply for our own pleasure and the chances of our images making any inroad in the collective memory is very remote, in fact almost impossible.
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antiquark
Derek Ross
I think the collective memory is so "choosy" (for lack of a better word) that very few of anything -- paintings, photos, novels, songs, videos -- make it into the collective memory. The problem is not limited to only still photographs.
nikon_sam
Shooter of Film...
Neil Leifer's photograph of the Ali vs. Liston knockout is a good example of how still shots still matter...The pose in this picture happen for just a fraction of a second and in the film footage you barely see it...Without Mr. Leifer's perfectly timed photo we would have never seen this...Ali v Liston
LKeithR
Improving daily--I think.
The essence of still photography--a captured moment. A video can tell a story; portray a linear event, if you will, but only a still photo can capture that "defining moment". The event that comes to my mind is when JFK was shot. The image of Jackie climbing into the back seat is one I'll never forget. The newsreel of the event tells a story but it's fleeting--the still image is timeless...
swoop
Well-known
Pickett Wilson
Veteran
I think there was a time when a photo could have significant impact. But I no longer believe that. We are awash in images. And while folks obviously love to look at images (otherwise, we wouldn't be awash in them), their interest is immediate, for a fraction of a minute, and then it moves on. Images are smoke.
But I don't think it should be important to photographers whether photos really "make a difference" (if they ever really did). While I've made a living with my cameras all my life, I've always been a photographer because I love to make images. It has never been important to me to change the world with those images. YMMV.
But I don't think it should be important to photographers whether photos really "make a difference" (if they ever really did). While I've made a living with my cameras all my life, I've always been a photographer because I love to make images. It has never been important to me to change the world with those images. YMMV.
The make a difference if you allow them too and you're not too jaded.
kehng
Established
I was at talk here in London this week, where one of the speakers banged on about how every image has already been made - and that there wasn't much room left in photography. Having had a few days to digest this information, I'd come to the conclusion, that as long as the world continues to change and people continue to change with it, the humble photograph will always have a new image to make.
Gabriel M.A.
My Red Dot Glows For You
IMVHO, I don't think that just because one segment has increased, that a different segment "ceases to make a difference". Oral traditions still exist, thousands of years after the invention of writing. Cooking at home still exists, decades after the proliferation of restaurants. Ships are still relevant, even a century after the invention of the airplane. B&W photos are still being made, decades after the introduction of Kodachrome (which is dead! and B&W are still being made). Acoustic guitars are still being made and are still being played decades after the invention of the electric guitar. Classical music is still being played decades after the invention of Rock-and-Roll. Women are still getting pregnant decades after the invention of the contraceptive pill. Talking pictures did not make mimes fall off the face of the Earth, and the arrival of MTV did not make radio stations disappear.
etc etc etc
I think this is a Wall-Streetish: a decrease of 10% in the water tower freaks them out and they start worrying about the end of water as we know it. Or making "only" 8.1 billion dollars versus 7.9 billion dollars spells a catastrophic trend driving the high-strung overpaid ties to cry "why isn't this company making money anymore!?"
No: it's an adjustment. Relevance doesn't disappear automatically because the prominence of the competition.
Soothsayerman
Established
The paradox of art, everything has already been done yet creativity still exists and is still relevant.
The other is that there are more images, just less that are worth remembering.
The other is that there are more images, just less that are worth remembering.
NLewis
Established
Photographs "mattering" has to do with the nature of the media.
Not too long ago, the typical family got a newspaper and some national magazines. A magazine might have maybe a dozen top-grade photos, a newspaper maybe three per week that were noteworthy. That was their sum total of exposure to pro-grade still photos. A few oddballs bought a photo book.
Today, we can surf at photo.net and see a couple hundred pro-grade photos in an hour.
People say "photography is dead" and yet there are more people looking at photos and more people making photos, and more people good at making photos, than ever before. The only thing that is "dead" is the old photography business. I think things will trend a little more toward the art market, where probably there will be more people buying art-quality books and prints than ever before, but also more people selling them, so it will be a bad business for most people.
The other thing that seems to be happening is a skew towards the educational aspect of photography. People will pay $3000+ for a photo tour of Thailand when they won't pay $100 for a print that will be better than anything they shoot in Thailand. So, there you go: art and education.
Not too long ago, the typical family got a newspaper and some national magazines. A magazine might have maybe a dozen top-grade photos, a newspaper maybe three per week that were noteworthy. That was their sum total of exposure to pro-grade still photos. A few oddballs bought a photo book.
Today, we can surf at photo.net and see a couple hundred pro-grade photos in an hour.
People say "photography is dead" and yet there are more people looking at photos and more people making photos, and more people good at making photos, than ever before. The only thing that is "dead" is the old photography business. I think things will trend a little more toward the art market, where probably there will be more people buying art-quality books and prints than ever before, but also more people selling them, so it will be a bad business for most people.
The other thing that seems to be happening is a skew towards the educational aspect of photography. People will pay $3000+ for a photo tour of Thailand when they won't pay $100 for a print that will be better than anything they shoot in Thailand. So, there you go: art and education.
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GSNfan
Well-known
This revolutionary sweep in the middle east is the final nail in the still photography for PJ purposes... Shaky cellphone video image is far more gritty, realistic and believable than any still photos coming from there. I just looked at some of the images on NY website and they're sent by some of the top PJ working right now, but the photos just don't feel right. They're too contrived and gimmicky to convey any sense of whats happening there, in fact they're just plain irrelevant... Still photos seem completely an outdated concept to document what they call a cyber-revolt.
Still photography is going through a tough time and hopefully it finds a direction.
Still photography is going through a tough time and hopefully it finds a direction.
Steve M.
Veteran
That's a very valid question. We're bombarded w/ more imagery than at any time in our short history. And yet, there's a portrait by Max Beckman at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art that will stop you in your tracks when you come around the corner because it's a masterpiece. So great images still move people.
Unfortunately, we're bombarded w/ really crappy images almost by the second. Violence and non existent values are projected into our brains so fast we're barely conscious of it. They work on a sub conscious level, which is where all of us really operate from, and they're powerful and disturbing. The sheer volume of the images, and their sophistication, is numbing us to violence and cruelty. I often think that's their purpose. A war mongering society that has lost it's sense of direction and morals will need a proletariat class that is numbed to violence. Makes it easier to send them off to war to fight for corporations. Believe me, the people that put together this horrid propaganda may be evil, but they're not stupid. The images work.
Unfortunately, we're bombarded w/ really crappy images almost by the second. Violence and non existent values are projected into our brains so fast we're barely conscious of it. They work on a sub conscious level, which is where all of us really operate from, and they're powerful and disturbing. The sheer volume of the images, and their sophistication, is numbing us to violence and cruelty. I often think that's their purpose. A war mongering society that has lost it's sense of direction and morals will need a proletariat class that is numbed to violence. Makes it easier to send them off to war to fight for corporations. Believe me, the people that put together this horrid propaganda may be evil, but they're not stupid. The images work.
Turtle
Veteran
I agree with Roger. It depends on your filter. Still images move me like nothing else, when done well.
Do we think in movie mode? I feel it is much closer to stills. A moment with a meaning that precipitates thought. 'A man killed in X' ultimately boils down to its essence in a still frame and as such can have enormous impact because there are no other points in time vying for your attention. Still images, to me, therefore come much closer to 'the point' than moving images, which have a before and after. That can be important, but it can also substantially detract from what otherwise might contain a 'decisive moment.'
Whether any of this matters really depends is subject to opinion. I rather think it does and suspect opinions on whether stills matter (in the news/documentary sense) is probably in proportion to your proximity or connection to the issues being covered.
Do we think in movie mode? I feel it is much closer to stills. A moment with a meaning that precipitates thought. 'A man killed in X' ultimately boils down to its essence in a still frame and as such can have enormous impact because there are no other points in time vying for your attention. Still images, to me, therefore come much closer to 'the point' than moving images, which have a before and after. That can be important, but it can also substantially detract from what otherwise might contain a 'decisive moment.'
Whether any of this matters really depends is subject to opinion. I rather think it does and suspect opinions on whether stills matter (in the news/documentary sense) is probably in proportion to your proximity or connection to the issues being covered.