Out to Lunch
Ventor
"Around 95 million photos are uploaded each day"
"More than 40 billion photos have been shared so far"
What is your problem? Prior to the internet, these pics ended-up in the sock drawer. Chill out and continue taking your pizza and grilled steak pics and the world will keep on turning. Peace, Peter
"More than 40 billion photos have been shared so far"
What is your problem? Prior to the internet, these pics ended-up in the sock drawer. Chill out and continue taking your pizza and grilled steak pics and the world will keep on turning. Peace, Peter
ptpdprinter
Veteran
PKR
Veteran
My citation was to underline the comment John made. Seems you have a problem with the numbers?
As for phones and social media, my neighbor told me her boyfriend was killed in an auto accident yesterday, while sending her a photo he had taken. He was killed as he was attempting to send the photo, while driving. I'm sure he was "chilled out" ..
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
Maybe people should use whatever they enjoy using, and not worry about what other people enjoy using. This phone vs. “real camera” has been going on for a good while now. Some people are happy using one, some people are happier using the other. No problem there.
On the other hand, as a completely separate entity with a life of its own, there’s the argument which swirls around the subject. The argument doesn’t stem from an understanding photography at all. The argument is pure virtue signaling. Those feeling an urge welling up inside to actually take the time to argue in favor of the blessings of phone photography (a very small subset of those whose only camera is a phone, and are happy with that) are really only saying “I’m better than you are, with your outmoded camera, your outmoded world view, you old, sad relic of a lousy past.” Those arguing for the primacy of conventional cameras, film or otherwise, are really only saying “I’m better than you are with your inadequate, inexpensive, device, you bottom feeding member of the hoi polloi. Sniff.”
Both groups of arguers are only partaking in the current pastime of “status lowering”, denigrating others as a group, and elevating themselves, under the guise of talking about hardware, or the greatest imponderable of all, art.
I’ve seen great photos made with a phone; we all have. Yet, I personally won’t ever use a phone as a camera because I find the process to be deadly dull, and almost completly devoid of any promise of personal satisfaction, and yet I get real enjoyment out of using a conventional camera. That’s just me, who cares? More importantly, why should anyone care?
Good photographs can be made with either phones or conventional cameras, so the discussion really isn’t about photography, it’s grounded in something else, something personal and non-objective. (The meta argument Wenders is feeding may not be as interesting as he thinks it is. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. It’s a bit ethereal, for those susceptible to that kind of thing.)
Those window decals certain types of Chevy owners put on their trucks, depicting a snarky boy pissing on the word “Ford”, and it’s emotional twin, the decal depicting a snarky boy pissing on the word “Chevy” seen on certain Ford trucks..... that’s all that undergirds arguments certain people have over phones vs. cameras. Mine’s bigger than yours is. I’m better than you are.
Wenders is just being a Chevy guy of the type who goes so far as to put that kind of decal on his truck. Or maybe he’s the Ford guy. At any rate, that’s the level he’s operating at, making an appeal to everyone’s lizard brain. Don’t let your lizard brain take the bait.
Let it go. It doesn’t matter. Chevy’s and Fords, phones and cameras, none of those are going away anytime soon. Don’t worry, be happy, none of it has any effect on art, whatever that is. There’s still seating up front, plenty of room for everybody.
On the other hand, as a completely separate entity with a life of its own, there’s the argument which swirls around the subject. The argument doesn’t stem from an understanding photography at all. The argument is pure virtue signaling. Those feeling an urge welling up inside to actually take the time to argue in favor of the blessings of phone photography (a very small subset of those whose only camera is a phone, and are happy with that) are really only saying “I’m better than you are, with your outmoded camera, your outmoded world view, you old, sad relic of a lousy past.” Those arguing for the primacy of conventional cameras, film or otherwise, are really only saying “I’m better than you are with your inadequate, inexpensive, device, you bottom feeding member of the hoi polloi. Sniff.”
Both groups of arguers are only partaking in the current pastime of “status lowering”, denigrating others as a group, and elevating themselves, under the guise of talking about hardware, or the greatest imponderable of all, art.
I’ve seen great photos made with a phone; we all have. Yet, I personally won’t ever use a phone as a camera because I find the process to be deadly dull, and almost completly devoid of any promise of personal satisfaction, and yet I get real enjoyment out of using a conventional camera. That’s just me, who cares? More importantly, why should anyone care?
Good photographs can be made with either phones or conventional cameras, so the discussion really isn’t about photography, it’s grounded in something else, something personal and non-objective. (The meta argument Wenders is feeding may not be as interesting as he thinks it is. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. It’s a bit ethereal, for those susceptible to that kind of thing.)
Those window decals certain types of Chevy owners put on their trucks, depicting a snarky boy pissing on the word “Ford”, and it’s emotional twin, the decal depicting a snarky boy pissing on the word “Chevy” seen on certain Ford trucks..... that’s all that undergirds arguments certain people have over phones vs. cameras. Mine’s bigger than yours is. I’m better than you are.
Wenders is just being a Chevy guy of the type who goes so far as to put that kind of decal on his truck. Or maybe he’s the Ford guy. At any rate, that’s the level he’s operating at, making an appeal to everyone’s lizard brain. Don’t let your lizard brain take the bait.
Let it go. It doesn’t matter. Chevy’s and Fords, phones and cameras, none of those are going away anytime soon. Don’t worry, be happy, none of it has any effect on art, whatever that is. There’s still seating up front, plenty of room for everybody.
robert blu
quiet photographer
PKR
Veteran
Larry;
As I and others have said, both on this thread and the others, this isn't about the phone as a camera tool, at least for those interested in photography. The gear people may find some issue with camera phones. I have no problem with a phone as a camera tool.
Winders isn't talking about the tool, he's talking about what the tool and social media have created .. something that has changed "photography" drastically. Like it or not, I don't think it can be argued that the use of camera phones and social media publishing have changed photography. Many years ago, when joining ASMP, I had to submit "Tear Sheets" of published work. Some of that work had to be published in national magazines for qualification. Today, publishing "Internationally" happens many millions of times a day, with only an upload to a social media site. The difference is, my photos (and those of others) went through a Photo Editor or Art Director before seeing any press time. Today, it's up to the photographer to self edit the 100 lunch photos of a burger and fries to maybe 1 or 2, rather than to dump all 100 of the lunch, and another 100 of dinner. This behavior lowers the bar. It's dumbing down the medium. I think that's what the discussion is about.
prk
ptpdprinter
Veteran
I don't see social media photos as any different than the Instamatic snapshots of my youth. Only the means of sharing has changed. Who complained in the film era that ordinary people taking pictures of their family and friends was dumbing down the medium? We don't need art directors to edit our lives.
xayraa33
rangefinder user and fancier
The big difference from the Instamatic days is that now we are inundated with a huge pile of so-so and mediocre images to dig through and all at our fingertips and from all over the world and it has become an real chore and not rewarding.
That drives us to spend our time somewhere else instead.
Something that was special in the past has now been debased.
That drives us to spend our time somewhere else instead.
Something that was special in the past has now been debased.
ptpdprinter
Veteran
Surely you only look at the social media feeds of your friends and family, and perhaps those of some of your favorite photographers, not everybody's. You never worried about looking at strangers' Instamatic prints, why worry about strangers' social media feeds. So what if there are a trillion images on the web? I don't feel any more inundated now than I did then. Why feel compelled to look at every image on Flickr? Act rationally.
xayraa33
rangefinder user and fancier
It is still image overload any way you want to slice or dice it.
It just makes us blasé to images in general.
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
I understand that, and fully agree with the observation that the phone camera has changed something. You make the point that camera phones have changed the business of photography. Certainly. But, the business of photography isn’t photography. It’s a career which makes use of photography. (Used to be a career at any rate, but that’s its own separate discussion.)
Wenders assertion that camera phones have rendered “photography” “dead” is something else again. Hyperbolic, foolish, grandstanding for attention, just being playful, I can’t say. One of those things, or some those things.
I did address, sort of, what he was saying with my sentence about the meta meaning of his comments. I’ve long understood what he was saying about the state of humanity as influenced by the use of phone cameras. Those concerns are valid, to some extent, I just don’t personally find it that interesting, because there’s nothing we can do about it. Some people susceptible to being dumbed down and acting like lemmings. Who knew? Whether that is “dumbing down the medium”, or just dumbing down themselves is only a matter of how we look at it.
As someone remarked about Wenders’ comments in the other similar thread, “Old man yells at cloud.” which seems about right.
My point, to the extent that I had one, wasn’t about what he was saying, it was about why he felt the need to say it, to add his voice to an extant argument, and why others argue about the same thing.
Maybe the fact that Wenders did a film called “Until the end of the World” has made him apocalyptic, and prone to making such statements. Or maybe he just woke up feeling superior, set a camera up, looked into it and tried to make all the insufficient people understand why they were inadequate and the damage they had done to civilization with their too many mediocre photos and lack of vision.
Bad photos are like bad music..you make it easy and you’ll get a lot of it. And we have, but that genie is out of the bottle.
There’s more to the subject, but post too long already. World isn’t perfect, not everyone is an artist, but everyone can be happy with what they are happy with, and it’s possible to ignore the madness and civilizational decline. I think.
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
phonygraphy.
PKR
Veteran
I agree with you.
I think this comes back to editing. Photo Editors, Art Directors, Graphic Designers and my printer, made me a better photographer. I got a lot of feedback over the years. It was all considered and it all helped.
If photography was something you were to eat. What would you eat; stuff made by people who considered all the elements of their product, and were thoughtful about what they delivered or, something made by someone who made thousands of things without thinking much about what went into them?
xayraa33
rangefinder user and fancier
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.
PKR
Veteran
It's been my experience that, the good photographers are still in business and making money. The thing that separates the men from the boys, in high end photography, is usually lighting and, a good knowledge of what will solve a client's visual problem. In the PJ world, this might translate to knowing what your editor will like-love and knowing where to be, and when to be there (Bill?).
The simple photos that once were made by some photographers are likely gone. Any good AD can make one. But, the stuff that good photographers are called on to make is still around, and commanding more money than in the past. People who once did Annual Report photography for $5k/day are commanding $20k-30k/day, if they are well known. Most reports go 15-30 days with travel.
Many Ad photos bring in amazing money. Not as often, but, commanding much more money than in the past.
ptpdprinter
Veteran
PKR
Veteran
I think, he's talking about public perception and art, with a small "a", and I agree with him. To find a good published photo on social media is a task. In the past, anything published went through several filters before the public saw it. This could be mass media work or, gallery work.
The photo fine art gallery world survives all this bs. They all seem to be doing well. Curators and gallery owners filter for good work. Collector / buyers know the quality from the bs.
https://fraenkelgallery.com/
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
So, I’m not the only one then.
xayraa33
rangefinder user and fancier
Hehe.. plenty of people are like that, and for various reasons other than the usual ones.
Bob Michaels
nobody special
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.