at Rist Camp - in the Adirondack Park ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone
at Rist Camp - in the Adirondack Park ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone
There is a blogger out there whose raison d'etre seems to be that of promoting a very dark and foreboding notion, re: the current state of the photography medium and its apparatus.
In the admittedly short time I have been checking in on said blog, said blogger has announced that, amongst a number of things, straight photography is dead, photos are no longer printed and hung on gallery walls, art no longer imitates life / life imitates art and, most recently, that said blogger is "pretty much sick of it" ("it", aka: photography).
That "sickness" has been brought on by a "plague of images". Images which, ih/ho, are "vulgar, banal and stupid." None of the images have "enriched my life", nor are any of them "rare and beautiful" nor do they have "a value which that transcended their aesthetic worth."
Said blogger's deduction from the aforementioned? The most dumb-ass statement yet:
"Now, nothing can have that value any more"
Seriously? Nothing? Maybe this blogger is going through a depression episode and has not taken his meds. Or, maybe said blogger is that type of person who is just disposed to not stay on the sunny side of life.
Or, perhaps said blogger has such a narrow bandwidth for things which prick his/her eye and sensibilities that the good picture pickings are very slim. To be absolutely certain, that proclivity is very valid for his/her outlook, photography wise. However ....
...stop already with the broad, declarative statements without including the caveat / phrase, "for me"*.
All of that written, let me make a relatively broad statement of my own .... iMco, and to my eye and sensitivities, there are a goodly number of pictures out there which are very capable of enriching one's life, which are beautiful (using a very broad definition of that word) and which have a value beyond their visual aesthetics.
To deny that is to engage in a form lazy-ass "blindness". Yes, it may take a bit more "digging" to find the jewels but for those who do engage in the act of digging, there are plenty of pictures of value to be found.
* said blogger does use the word "I" a lot in the lead up to his/her overly broad statements so I guess I should cut him/her a bit of a break on that score. But not too much, cuz I couldn't have as much ranting fun otherwise.