(embiggenable) • iPhone
I have spent the better part of the last 4 days working myself into a fine tizzy. The cause of my state of mind is the goings on over at TOP.
The esteemed host and many of his commenters are dishing out stale and somewhat, iMo, time-worn bromides, re: the state of photography. One in particular, which has stuck in my craw over the past decade or more, is that which declared that "photography has changed." iMo, that a bunch of hooey.
OK. Some things have changed ... each day more pictures are uploaded to the internet than have been made since the dawn of picture making up until the day preceeding that day. It is probable that there are more picture making devices in the hands of people than ever before. And, it also probable that more people are viewing more pictures than ever before.
Even given those changes, I believe that photography, i.e., the act of making pictures, has not changed at all. Correspondingly, I believe that the how, the why, or the what is being picture is the absolute same as it ever was.
Consider:
•People are making pictures (of all types - snapshots, those with artistic intentions, etc.) because they like to make pictures. Picture makers derive pleasure, satisfaction, and a sense of accomplisment in the pursuit of that activity.
•The overwheming number of those picture makers want their pictures to be seen and, hopefully appreciated or "liked".
•Some of those picture makers want their work to hang on gallery walls and be sold.
•The making of pictures is the same as it ever was - they were made with a device with a light sensitive substrate of one kind or another but the end result is the same, a picture.
•The making of fanciful pictures with the use of apps and software is the same as it ever was - see the work of the early Pictoralists or individual picture makers like Jerry Uelsman.
•Re; the what is being pictured. Any thing and every thing is fodder for picture making, the same as it ever was inasmuch as Kodak solidified that mindset a long time ago when it placed easy to use devices in the hands of an untold number of picture makers who then went out began making pictures of people, places and things of all kinds. And it wsn't long thereafter that "serious" picture makers adopted the same mindset.
Considering the above-and there are many more to consider-what has changed relative to the act of making pictures? iMo, not a damn thing.
PS feel free to tell me that I am full of BS.