(embiggenable) • iPhone
OK, OK. I JUST MAY HAVE GONE OFF A LITTLE BIT OVER THE TOP on Mssr.Johnston in yesterday's entry. However, the fact is that I do not feel very bad about doing so cuz...
...yesterday's ire, while it may seem to have been primarily directed toward the stupidity of Johnston's assumptive and un-informed pronouncements, it was also directed toward the long-held but gradually overcome idea that the making of a picture is "just" a mechanical process. To wit, the camera makes the picture. All the human does is press the shutter.
Now this idea was dismissed in the higher levels of the art world quite a while ago. So, it distresses me to encouter, in this day and age, a substantial cadre of "serious" picture makers who seem to be intent on turning back the clock. They are obessed by the idea of technical / mechanical "perfection" in both gear and processing. And, by extension, the only good picture is one made with the most perfect of picture making instruments and processed to highest technical standards-an obesession with the "numbers"-attainable.
The result of the pursuit of perfection is pictures with no soul, Cold, clinical and lifeless pictures. But, of course, never let it written that they are not "perfect".