PhonePhoto

[PKR]

Good analogy comparing with food .

As someone suggested the old man shaking his fist towards the sky scenario, then there is little we can do about it.. just as much as wanting to buy a new modern made car in North America that has no electronics in it.
We have to accept the time we live in.

Luckily, for the time being, film is still available and so is photo printing paper.. so we can be Luddites to our heart's content and pretend it is still the 1960s or the 1970s in our own little world, what ever makes us happy.

I think film will be around for quite some time.. B & W for sure.

As for cars (trucks), there's lots of stuff around that will pass smog, that isn't full of electronics. An older Chev or Ford with a six or small V8 and manual transmission is a good option. Lots around, that are on the road here in North Cal.

I use both film and digital gear. I try to stay up with the latest sensor advances. Still prefer film for my personal work.

 

[PKR]

I remain baffled why people even bother to look on social media for good photography. Simply look at a copy of Life magazine, National Geographic, or about 50 others. Look at national advertisements. Look at large companies annual reports. Look at your newspaper or CNN on line.

We are surrounded by thousands of very high quality photographs every day. It seems those who favor internet photo forums tend to ignore that quality work and believe a photo does not count as a photo unless it is posted on someone's social media account.

Bob;

I don't think most of the social media photographers can tell the difference. Recently, a neighbor looked an an old gallery portfolio of my work and dismissed it as complete BS. These are images that have been popular over the years .. and I don't claim to be a great photographer.. There was no one standing on the edge of a cliff, no one being dragged by a high speed car, no burger and fries photos .. so, just BS. my neighbor takes photos constantly and is in her 50s. She wonders how I could consider myself a photographer. Times have changed.

pkr

 

[xayraa33]

I think film will be around for quite some time.. B & W for sure.

As for cars (trucks), there's lots of stuff around that will pass smog, that isn't full of electronics. An older Chev or Ford with a six or small V8 and manual transmission is a good option. Lots around, that are on the road here in North Cal.

I use both film and digital gear. I try to stay up with the latest sensor advances. Still prefer film for my personal work.

Like I said before, If there is market for something then I am sure someone will make it. The monetary profit motive is hard to resist.

Even if film disappears, chemicals can still be bought from supply houses that specialise in these materials and things like collodion and silver nitrate and sodium thiosulfate and ethyl alcohol can still be obtained or made if one wants to get into wet-plate photography.

The nuts and bolts of Analog Photography is chemistry and raw chemicals will be around .

My point was on brand new cars in North America, and even the simplest and lowest priced sub-compact models now rely on electronics.

 

[PKR]

Like I said before, If there is market for something then I am sure someone will make it. The monetary profit motive is hard to resist.

Even if film disappears, chemicals can still be bought from supply houses that specialise in these materials and things like collodion and silver nitrate and sodium thiosulfate and ethyl alcohol can still be obtained or made if one wants to get into wet-plate photography.

The nuts and bolts of Analog Photography is chemistry and raw chemicals will be around.

My point was on brand new cars in North America, and even the simplest and lowest priced sub-compact models now rely on electronics.

With cars, its worse than what most people think as per "electronics". Most new cars have GPS tracking built in. Most can be disabled by a signal sent from a Highway Patrol car. Most need to go to the Dealer to be serviced. Most of the Onboard Electronics can be hacked.

I use computers a lot. Everything connected to the outside world is hackable. New cars are connected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR8RrmEizVg

I like older cars.

 

[xayraa33]

With cars, its worse than what most people think as per "electronics". Most new cars have GPS tracking built in. Most can be disabled by a signal sent from a Highway Patrol car. Most need to go to the Dealer to be serviced. Most of the Onboard Electronics can be hacked.

I use computers a lot. Everything connected to the outside world is hackable. New cars are connected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR8RrmEizVg

I like older cars.

I have family members that bought new cars and these cars are equipped with 4G connectivity and one swears that the car gives her the most ominous feeling while driving it and it is a perfectly good driving car complete with new car smell.

The switch to 5G will be much worse on the human mind and body , as 5G seeks to use a whole new spectrum, that of millimetre waves just to allow for more signal traffic and our roads and streets will have
thousands of miniature cell phone base stations every 300 yards or so.

 

[robert blu]

photographer or author?

photographer or author?

Correct or not ( I still agree with his comments) Wim Wenders gave us food for an interesting discussion...

Having read both the thread about its comment (and thought about) I am coming with another point of view.

We should distinguish between "photographer" and "author"

Simplifying: when I snap pictures just because I like to do it (probably with a smart phone because easier, but not necessarily) I am photographing and nothing wrong with it. Therefore I'm a photographer, and today we are all photographers...

But if I go out with a plan, with the idea to look for photo to be inserted in a specific body of work, with a concept, where I have already decided if the photo will be B&W or color, or the parameters, and later I'll edit my photos evaluating if they can work together with the work I'm doing, or if they are coherent with my idea or vision, than I am more an "author" than a photographer.

This is an extreme simplification, maybe the theme should benefit of an its own thread to be deeper developed.
Of course I'm a pure amateur and have not to do with clients...or seen different I'm in the same time employer and worker ...
robert

PS: it seems me there is someone who considers WW as someone who needs to promote himself and his work...I do not think it is the case...below just a quote from wikipedia:


Wenders has already received many awards, including the Golden Lion for The State of Things at the Venice Film Festival (1982); the Palme d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival for his movie Paris, Texas; and Best Direction for Wings of Desire in the 1987 Bavarian Film Awards[17] and the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. In 1993 he won the Bavarian Film Awards for Best Director for Faraway, So Close!.[17] In 2004, he received the Master of Cinema Award of the International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg. He was awarded the Leopard of Honour at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2005. In 2012, his dance film Pina was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature of the 84th Academy Awards.[18]

He has been awarded honorary doctorates at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1989, at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) in 1995 and at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium in 2005.

In 2012 the Wim Wenders Foundation was created in Düsseldorf creating a framework to bring together the cinematic, photographic, artistic and literary lifework of Wim Wenders in his native country and to make it permanently accessible to the general public worldwide.[19]

He was presented with the Honorary Golden Bear at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2015.[20] In 2016, Wenders received the Großer Kulturpreis of the Sparkassen Culture-Foundation Rhineland, one of the highest endowed cultural honorings in Germany, with previous winners such as photographer legend Hilla Becher, sculptor Tony Cragg, musician Wolfgang Niedecken and director Sönke Wortmann. In 2017, Wenders received the Douglas Sirk Award at the Hamburg Film Festival.[21]

 

[johannielscom]

Personally I covet the label 'photographer' so I'd rather distinct between a photographer and a phonygrapher, the latter being a person who snaps with a phone, while the former creates photos with a camera.

And yes there's that exception where truly beautiful photos are created with a smart phone but I'd base the distinction on general usage and results: there's a far greater amount of crap images that mimick photos produced with smart phones than there is crap images that resemble smart phone snaps produced with cameras. So therefor the smart phone images are the phony ones and the camera images are the real photos.

 

[jsrockit]

I don't think most of the social media photographers can tell the difference. Recently, a neighbor looked an an old gallery portfolio of my work and dismissed it as complete BS. These are images that have been popular over the years .. and I don't claim to be a great photographer.. There was no one standing on the edge of a cliff, no one being dragged by a high speed car, no burger and fries photos .. so, just BS. my neighbor takes photos constantly and is in her 50s. She wonders how I could consider myself a photographer. Times have changed.

Yes, I have seen this too... not only about my photos, but regarding established artists that I deem special (IMO). I think people think they know photography due to knowing the cliches, but fall outside of that box and they do not understand. It's ok... Saul Leiter had artist friends who would forget the prints he gave them at his apartment...and never remember to ask for them again. Then many years later, those prints are in books and galleries doing well.

 

[PKR]

Yes, I have seen this too... not only about my photos, but regarding established artists that I deem special (IMO). I think people think they know photography due to knowing the cliches, but fall outside of that box and they do not understand. It's ok... Saul Leiter had artist friends who would forget the prints he gave them at his apartment...and never remember to ask for them again. Then many years later, those prints are in books and galleries doing well.

What I see as very different today is, many people see no value in Art. This is pretty common i think. First TV, and more recently social media have played a big roll in this. And, I think the trend has more mass here than in Europe. I'm curious about what you see in SA ?

Most of the social network related photos that "people" like, are photos involving "them". They are the center of attention. It's what "they" are eating, where "they" are going, what "they"" did, who "they" met (they are in the photo), what "they" own.. The concept of selfie extends far beyond a self picture, taken at arms length. A lot of people think this trend is restricted to the under 35 age group but, it looks like social media has many 50 and over locked in. I read that some local restaurants have installed "special" lighting or seating in specially lit areas that are more favorable for good food photos. customers insist on photographing everything they eat and the restaurant owners want their food looking as good as possible if it's making an appearance.

A serious problem many pro photographers are experiencing is, photo assistants snapping photos of sets and portrait subjects (especially if they are famous) and posting them to social media during the work day. Most photographers want their clients, portrait subjects and work place free from this kind of thing. The photo kiddies doing this stuff are quickly booted and word gets around. But many, knowing this will happen, do it anyway. The attention they get over rides the loss of a job or future work.

It's all about making yourself famous, as quickly as possible, and art plays no part in this.

 

[ptpdprinter]

Most of the social network related photos that "people" like, are photos involving "them". They are the center of attention. It's what "they" are eating, where "they" are going, what "they"" did, who "they" met (they are in the photo), what "they" own.. The concept of selfie extends far beyond a self picture, taken at arms length. A lot of people think this trend is restricted to the under 35 age group but, it looks like social media has many 50 and over locked in. I read that some local restaurants have installed "special" lighting or seating in specially lit areas that are more favorable for good food photos. customers insist on photographing everything they eat and the restaurant owners want their food looking as good as possible if it's making an appearance.

Photographers bear a fair amount of the blame for this. Social media started out as a place where people shared snapshots of their lives - vacations, meals, kids - a giant electronic shoebox. When it became apparent that this is where people were spending time looking at images, photographers started posting their work there looking for followers, likes, and money. They essentially threw their art in the shoebox, and now complain their work is diluted and lost among the snapshots. Well, duh.

 

[PKR]

Photographers bear a fair amount of the blame for this. Social media started out as a place where people shared snapshots of their lives - vacations, meals, kids - a giant electronic shoebox. When it became apparent that this is where people were spending time looking at images, photographers started posting their work there looking for followers, likes, and money. They essentially threw their art in the shoebox, and now complain their work is diluted and lost among the snapshots. Well, duh.

I know a few photographers who have Instagram pages. The few who come to mind, teach on an annual basis. So, i guess that makes some sense, as per announcements and other info. I don't know many amateur photographers, except for the ones here. And, don't know what they do. I don't look at the images posted to this site. Many pros still have websites up that are updated constantly. Some, even have blog sites for quick updates. For some, this might be good for business but, i'll bet a lot of it is just vanity. I don't have any social media presence. I no longer have a website. I put up temporary sites on a per project basis that are only up for a month or two. They are visited by my client and me... that's it. There is a gallery site that has some of my old stuff on it. I don't think it generates a lot of traffic, I don't know.

So, that's the extent of my knowledge on photographers having a web presence. I think most of the "photographers" you are talking about are maybe amateur people or maybe Art photographers wanting to sell prints? In all the cases I've mentioned, the quantity of photos on the websites / social media pages are often fewer than 100 images. In the case of one photographer friend, his Instagram account represents the bulk of his 50 years of working professionally. I think he has about 110 images posted. These were edited before being published and again edited further by him. None of these people have uploaded 100 photos of their lunch. There is a vast divide in the two camps of "photographers".

I think the bigger point is that, many of the New Photographers see no difference between my friends 100+ pictures of his years of travel ( https://www.instagram.com/williamalbertallard/?hl=en ) and the 2500 they uploaded of their 2 week vacation...
https://chrisguillebeau.com/the-quest-for-1-million-photos-interview-with-thomas-hawk/

 

[helen.HH]

phonygraphy.

hahaha .... like that Johannes

 

[helen.HH]

if a 'Photo' moves, grips, or questions you
than that's all that matters ...not the medium


though I must confess... give me a camera and I am bound to take a Great Shot...give me a phone and I suck, plain & simple...don't know why

 

[Bill Pierce]

As to there being a lot of photographers…..

When I started as a freelance news photographer, I believe it was the American Society of Magazine Photographers (now “Media Photographers”) that published an article saying that there were 200 “editorial freelance” photographers who made enough each year to pay income tax ($600). If you were average, you were the 100th best editorial freelance in America. Your skills were broad ranging in that you could both use an exposure meter for natural light and guide numbers for on-camera flash. Years later the situation had not changed that much. When Rick Smolan did his first Day in the Life book and flew 100 photographers to Australia, one magazine editor worried that if the plane went down the magazines wouldn’t have any of their major photographers. He was right.

But, it’s not just that there were fewer photographers, there were fewer publications - and less competition between them. The same subscriber probably got both Life Magazine and its arch rival Look Magazine.

Today capturing people’s attention on an internet packed with choices (a zillion competitors) is an imperative for survival. Thus, changing the pictures often or directing specific images to a smaller more targeted audience is more important than picture quality. If you were a loyal subscriber to the printed Life Magazine, you were stuck with the same pictures for a week. That doesn’t work for today’s web viewer. So, yes, picture quality has dropped in favor of fresh but lessor images. If you are a photographer, you think that is awful. If you are an editor, you think that is the inevitable result of the need for higher volume. If you are a viewer, you are probably unaware that this is being done to hold your attention.

 

[jsrockit]

What I see as very different today is, many people see no value in Art. This is pretty common i think. First TV, and more recently social media have played a big roll in this. And, I think the trend has more mass here than in Europe. I'm curious about what you see in SA ?

I agree... Art just isn't that popular in general. Especially today when it takes a great deal of buying into abstract ideas and conceptual concepts. In Chile, I do feel that they are trying to have better exhibits here and that things are getting better and not worse. I have a few Facebook groups were we talk about work and photography in general. Not ideal for me, but better than nothing...and it helps because I can use google translate. I have met a few people in person, but the talent levels vary wildly. There does not seem to be the focus on gear above all else here... probably because it costs 30-40% higher than in the US. That said, I do not have a great grasp on everything because I don't speak the language well at all. I just keep photographing.

Most of the social network related photos that "people" like, are photos involving "them". They are the center of attention. It's what "they" are eating, where "they" are going, what "they"" did, who "they" met (they are in the photo), what "they" own.. The concept of selfie extends far beyond a self picture, taken at arms length. A lot of people think this trend is restricted to the under 35 age group but, it looks like social media has many 50 and over locked in. I read that some local restaurants have installed "special" lighting or seating in specially lit areas that are more favorable for good food photos. customers insist on photographing everything they eat and the restaurant owners want their food looking as good as possible if it's making an appearance.

Yes, and there is nothing wrong with this... but it serves a different purpose than Art, etc. I tend to find that many online experts are generally just novices that think they know a lot.

A serious problem many pro photographers are experiencing is, photo assistants snapping photos of sets and portrait subjects (especially if they are famous) and posting them to social media during the work day. Most photographers want their clients, portrait subjects and work place free from this kind of thing. The photo kiddies doing this stuff are quickly booted and word gets around. But many, knowing this will happen, do it anyway. The attention they get over rides the loss of a job or future work.

It's all about making yourself famous, as quickly as possible, and art plays no part in this.

That's sad... but to be young, is to be ... :bang: No problem with young people, but I was a dummy as a young guy.