all photos ~ (embiggenable)
SIGNS OF THE IMPENDING ONSET OF THE AUTUMNAL BACCHANALIA of leaf-peeping frenzy are breaking out all over. It won’t be long before our little piece of heaven on earth will be overrun with camera wielding, pretty picture makers taking the 7 trillionth + cliche fall photograph(s).
That written, what is surging to the front of my picture making skull is my seemingly never-ending–I swear I can’t control it– annoyance and irritation with inane utterances re: the photo medium and its apparatus.
item #1: Micheal Johnston’s never-ending dissing of the smartphone as a picture making device. Today’s example:
“I actually kind of wish Smartphone cameras had never become "good enough." The good enough is the enemy of excellent.”
re: “good enough”, aka: Adequate - something acceptable, even if it is not perfect. I call bull shit cuz smartphone photo making capabilities surpassed “good enough” several iterations ago. A fact that any number of photographers toiling in the fine art world–or even snapshot amateurs just screwing around and having fun–realized long ago, my own self included. Most / many gallery directors, photo exhibition jurists, and the general photo viewing public all seem to believe that my photographs are “excellent”, which leads me directly to ….
item #2: re: “the enemy of excellent” - That written, I realize that Johnston, just like most “serious” amateurs, has an understanding that photographic excellence is significantly dependent upon “perfect” technical considerations; max sharpness / resolution, extreme fine detail, max dynamic range, and the like. As a result he/they spend a significant amount of time and energy festering and agonizing over gear. Cuz, ya know, ya can’t take excellent pictures without excellent gear, gear that has “excellent” technical specs, which leads directly to ….
item #3: a response to Johnston’s post from which the above quote was extracted:
“I can't go with the 4/3 sensor size. Not enough dynamic range and not enough detail.”
First, let me write that the idea of “not enough dynamic range / detail” is not a comment one is apt to hear at photo exhibition in a fine art gallery / art institution. Ordinarily, one must go to a camera club gathering in order to hear such inane utterances–as well as the ever popular and insightful query, “What camera do you use?”
That written, let me go out on a limb here and write that extreme dynamic range and lots of detail are, in so many cases, the enemy of excellent. iMo, and to my eye and sensitivities (and I am not alone in this regard), there is nothing more excellent-destroying in a photograph than ultra vibrancy and maximum granular detail–visual characteristics that do not simulate normal human vision. Most photographs that exhibit such characteristics appear to me to be caricatures of the real world–pictures of some thing that exaggerate or distort its prominent physical features or character traits. Proving over and over again that nothing exceeds like excess.
OK. So there you have it. I got that outa my system (for now). But, FYI, just for kicks, I included an Olympus µ4/3 made photograph in this entry. Bet ya can’t tell which one cuz, ya know, both picture making devices are quite “adequate”.