

Technology is killing the art of photography - muskoka
http://fourreasonswhy.com/2007/12/18/technology-is-killing-the-art-of-photography/

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wmeredith
Hmmm, I'm going to call bullshit on this. When it comes to technology, people
often use the word "killing" when they should be using the word "advancing."
It's OK, we all get scared sometimes that we may be irrelevant soon, or worse,
that we never were.

"1. While advances in technology have allowed digital cameras to come down in
price, the quality has yet to come close to 35 millimetre cameras for the
average snapper."

By what standard is quality being judged? It is not being judged by the
standard of information captured, or by the standard of ease of use, or by the
standard of portability, or by the standard of adoption cost, and most
assuredly not by the standard of medium manipulation.

"2. Cameras are everywhere now. It seems like everywhere you turn, someone's
got a camera in your face. And all of these cameras are producing too many
pictures. (Just look at the number of photos on Flickr!) The results are
generally crappy, with pictures that are too grainy, out of focus or
over/under exposed."

This is utter bullshit. Beyond the argument-weakening statements like, "it
seems" and "the results are generally", saying something like "there are too
many pictures now" smacks of hubris. What number, specifically, is the correct
number of pictures that should be in existence at any one time? The number of
photos hosted on Flickr has exactly 0 correlations to the quality of said
photos.

"3. The blame isn't restricted to just hardware. The access to, and ease of
use of, image altering software has allowed for a quick fix to otherwise bad
photos. While some may argue that this is part of the creative process, there
are very few artists that use Photoshop as part of the medium."

More emotional responses used as supporting statements. Fixing a "bad' photo
still leaves you with a fixed photo. And the last statement about very few
artists using Photoshop as part of the medium is wrong-coated-wrongness with
chewy wrong filling.

"4. Photographs have become cheap and expendable commodities, so the value
associated with pictures is essentially zero. As few pictures are ever printed
out and the cost of storage being negligible, snappers don't really care how
they come out. This definitely breeds an attitude of quantity over quality."

Ask someone to spend one week setting up a photo shoot, and then have them
take one shot. Give another person a 1000 picture quota and then pick the best
one. Who do you think will win most of the time? Anyone who knows anything
about photography knows that quantity breeds quality.

"5. With the ubiquity of digital cameras, everyone thinks that they can take
good pictures. The truth is, very few people know how to take a proper
picture. As eloquently put by Smittymike19 here, "i guess what i am trying to
say is taht digital photography is to photography what pornography is to sex.
there is no way taht your sex life is as good as a portrayed in pornography.
same can be said about digital photography."

In what universe does this pass for "eloquence"? I guess the same universe in
which all "good pictures" are taken by luddites.

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soundsop
_Photographs have become cheap and expendable commodities, so the value
associated with pictures is essentially zero._

This is the reason you never see photographs any more.

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brlewis
Brilliantly wrong.

~~~
eru
Just wrong.

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dag
Technology is eliminating the false value applied to a photograph because of
the cost in money and effort required to get one. What remains is the value of
the moment that you are capturing, which is the true purpose of a photograph.

Besides, we already know that camera technology killed the art of painting.

~~~
eru
And painting killed the art of photographic memory.

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gills
This is a like a Great Hacker claiming that open source is killing the art of
writing software.

Anyway...artistic talent transcends the tools, and a sea of garbage
photography should make the truly excellent art stand out even more.

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jacobolus
utter bullshit.

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jraines
Pretty much all of the submissions from this site are linkbait attached to
fluff.

