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Thursday, 30 August 2018

'The more photographs the world takes, the less creative they become.

convergent definition: 
  • 1. coming closer together: 
  • 2. becoming more similar: 
  • 3. coming closer together or meeting.



Above is a video on the BBC where Wim Wenders talks about Mobile Phones 'killing' photography. I put it here as a point of view. However, I don't agree with him at all, I don't think phones are killing photography at all. In fact they have revitalised it and made it a part of peoples lives whereas before it was some sort of luxury, elitist activity. Unfortunately, what smartphones, social media and the photographic internet have done is restricted creativity in photography, leading to a conformity that is both depressing and shackling. Woe betide anyone who thinks outside the box and dares to be different. In fact the situation is as the title of this post says 'The more photographs the world takes, the less creative they become.'

The problem with all of this is that everyone is a photographer. Now while that's a good thing meaning that anyone carrying a camera isn't necessarily a pedophile or a terrorist, since all those smartphone users have discovered the pleasure in making a photograph just for it's own sake. However, when photography as a hobby or enthusiasm was restricted to a small group of film camera users there was a lot more discussion of the merits of various techniques. And of course the photographic competition mentality was also in play. To a large extent that has gone. Replaced by social media and the gear head photographic internet, with it's 'review' sites and YouTube 'stars'. In the midst of what camera does what, what looks good and what doesn't, any discussion of what photography means, where it's come from and where it's going, doesn't really have any kind of mass relevance. And idiots playing with new gear seems to be the only innovation we get.

Now I'm sure that there are sites out there that talk about photography as an art (God forbid!!) it's just that they don't get much publicity. After all it's hard to produce thought out images and discuss their value without being pretentious and publishing test shots of what some new bit of gear can do is a lot easier anyway. And yes I can guilty of that as well. The problem is that I don't think that it's going to change and I suspect that there will be nothing to cheer Wim Wenders up about the nature and relevance of great photography in the future. And maybe we should all just accept that and move on.

There is however the nature of our relationship with our gear and how we publish it. There is nothing like working in a spectacular location with great light, documenting important cultural events, capturing once in a lifetime animal or natural history shots, or working with your sitter to come up with a great portrait.............TO BE CONTINUED IN FUTURE POSTS



Stock photography by david martyn hughes at Alamy

© David Taylor-Hughes / Soundimageplus Blog










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