Sunday Telegraph:loathing of cameras

Interesting to hear people's points of view.
My favourite response to the author was: "What a misery guts you turned out to be, Nigel."
 
I've seen the scenario described in the article -- manic shutter clicking -- with both digital and one-use film cameras. It's as if people think good photos happen by random chance, so they just click and click and click.

Many people have never really looked at a good photo, sometimes in the literal sense.
 
The Telegraph complaining about some aspect of the modern world is really not much of surprise. It is the modern luddite fashion to bemoan all forms of modernism that you do not yourself derive any use from.....mobile phones, sat nav, the internet etc ..... He doesn't mind the cable car that took him above Barcelona I notice. If the worse thing in life we have to worry about is the clicking of camera's I'd settle for that.
 
Yammerman said:
The Telegraph complaining about some aspect of the modern world is really not much of surprise. It is the modern luddite fashion to bemoan all forms of modernism that you do not yourself derive any use from.....mobile phones, sat nav, the internet etc ..... He doesn't mind the cable car that took him above Barcelona I notice. If the worse thing in life we have to worry about is the clicking of camera's I'd settle for that.
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Yes, he seems to like old Ansel but I wonder what he`d think if Adams forced his way into the cable car with a stonking big view camera.
 
Nice reply Yammerman. I wonder if he realised that the cable car has deprived him of the hard work it would take to sweat his way up the mountain which would have engaged him with the mountain and the sights on the way up rather than giving him the ease and time to deride some of his fellow passengers. He should be happy for them. I suppose he should be happy period.
 
I agree with him, but he does seem to just write, write, write everywhere he goes.

As for Ansel stepping into the cable car with the 5x7 slung over his shoulder, I would be damned thrilled! Just think of the chat we could have about the much-rumoured 8x10 "full frame" sensor coming from the reconstituted Deardorf Corp, along with 8x10 Kodachrome II slated to be launched by the newly reorganized Eastman company, which has just emerged from receivership!
 
One of the things I love about still photography is that it allows me to both capture an image for review but doesn't take all my time away from experiencing the moment, the way video does. I really dislike taking video. For me, video interferes with my experience of the actual event, while still photography enhances it by compelling me to look and see in a concentrated way.
 
I think that if Zeiss and Schneider used modern glasses and aspheric lens grinding technology for their large format lenses it should be easy enough to print billboards and wraps for full size buses and tractor trailers with the new 4x5 Kodachrome III. The price of elderly 4x5 Crown Graphics and Busch Pressmans will go through the roof. No need for huge digital expensive sensors, and the transparencies would be archival without any effort.
 
FrankS said:
One of the things I love about still photography is that it allows me to both capture an image for review but doesn't take all my time away from experiencing the moment, the way video does. I really dislike taking video. For me, video interferes with my experience of the actual event, while still photography enhances it by compelling me to look and see in a concentrated way.
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So right. I gave up still for ten or more years to do video. Mostly as a result of horses. Needed to capture movement. Started taking video footage at horse trials but looking back I only experienced the event as a black and white live view.Brought it home when a girlfriend said ,after one weekend event, "didn`t see much of that did you".
 
Once again, I can only stare agog at those who propose to tell others how many photographs they are allowed to take, and when, and of what.

My reply to such people generally consists of two words, and can be illustrated with a single finger.

The author begins from a conclusion, and then fabricates a series of logical fallacies to support that phony hypothesis.

To wit:

His was a digital camera, so he no doubt figured he wasn't wasting film, and he probably knew he would never get round to looking at his photographs anyway, let alone deleting those frames he didn't want.
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The author presumes to know what the tourist / photographer was thinking. He further proposes that the resulting images would never be looked at anyway. And he knows this because?

It's pure fantasy. It might be true, and it equally well might not.

One also feels compelled to ask - what particular business it is of the author what other people do with their cameras?

As I watched him, it struck me that photography, once a noble art, has become, thanks to the move to digital, a mental illness.
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The author follows on with the usual insulting statement, which is sadly quite typical of the Luddite, as he has now revealed himself to be. Gratuitous and without logical basis. Fortunately, I can be far more insulting and rude that he can.

Our first instinct when confronted with the sublime in nature, or the frozen music of architecture, or a tender moment with a friend, is not to contemplate it, but to reach for our cameras so that we can experience it later, second-hand – or, more likely, ignore it later, because we are too busy taking the next pointless photograph in order to have a pointless record of everything we ever saw, or would have seen, had we not been taking a photograph of it.
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Once again, the presumptions as to what use others will put to the photographs they have taken, or the lack of appreciation on the photographer's part. And how does the author know that the tourist / photographer had not already been on this particular trip and seen the views, or that he or she could not possibly appreciate said views without putting the camera down? Perhaps he has telepathy.

I found the article to be idiotic and based upon presuppositions that are not true - with the possible exception of the photographers who persisted in taking flash photos where told not to. This is a valid criticism, but it is down to rudeness and inconsideration for others, not photography. The same people feed the zoo animals, touch the wet paint, and cut in queues. Rudeness is not limited to those who take 'too many photographs',
 but can also be found in those who propose to tell others how many photographs they ought properly to take.
 
Michael Markey said:
So right. I gave up still for ten or more years to do video. Mostly as a result of horses. Needed to capture movement. Started taking video footage at horse trials but looking back I only experienced the event as a black and white live view.Brought it home when a girlfriend said ,after one weekend event, "didn`t see much of that did you".
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I enjoyed the comment: "Of course its annoying to have some jerk (usual and Japanese or an American) wielding a video cmaera as if it's line of sight is a laser beam one must never break...."
 
I always carry a camera with me. Its become a habit as I love photography. Its becoming more and more common for people to question why I do this - usually in a disapproving manner. Last week I was shooting a sculpture in a public place and had some interfering old biddie demand to know what I was photographing and why. At first I took it for genuine interest before I realised it was instead genuine hostility. A couple of weeks ago I had a run in with some half wit who told me it was illegal to take photos in public places. I told him "maybe one day but not yet, so F off and mind your own business." I am afraid my attitude is hardening as much as theirs.
 
I have my phone programed for the local police, not just the emergency 911 number. When that happens I offer them the phone and tell them to call the police and have me arrested if they think that I'm breaking the law. They don't.
 
Sounds to me that you are advocating some sort of democracy there ,Bill. I think that the author (whose stuff I usually like) leans more to the Voltaire persuasion judging by his views in this matter.
 
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