Every time a new camera is introduced there seems to be a review of it's 'vlogging capabilities'. As if all contemporary photographers want to do is point the camera at themselves and spout a combination of self serving nonsense, repeat endless platitudes and present the before image from a skin care commercial. It may not have escaped your attention that coherent writing is a dying art as more and more photographic 'commentators' turn to the video camera to put across what they want to say. To say that this results in narcissism, pointlessness and annoying ineptitude is stating the obvious, however this doesn't seem to stop people producing and watching this crap.
It goes without saying that vlogging has nothing at all to do with photography. So why do manufacturers insist on telling us the vlogging capabilities of their cameras. Apart from anything else isn't a smartphone the perfect tool for doing this anyway? And in many cases cameras that we are told are good for vlogging are nothing of the sort. It seems that the manufacturers are trying to jump onto a bandwagon that doesn't actually exist.
Photography is about capturing a vision of the world through a photographers unique eye. This is an objective process, not a subjective one where the camera user (I refuse to call them photographers) becomes the centre of attention. And we all know what gets produced, narcissistic drivel. Like the dreadful selfie. I have never taken a selfie and never will. I also don't know anyone who has ever taken one.
I have to admit that I don't see any point whatsoever in people uploading their dreadful images or videos of themselves to social media. There is enough ugliness in the world without adding to it. I have looked at a few examples of all this and once spent a dreadful hour looking at the drivel on Tik Tok. Mind boggling awfulness, with people demonstrating just how talentless they are.
OK, it's a free country (well here in the UK it is) and people have a right to do what they like, within the obvious limitations, but why should camera companies get involved with this? The answer of course is to make money, or some misguided notion that leads them to believe that will happen. To me all it seems to achieve is to piss off serious photographers and make them think about switching brands. There is enough devaluation of the art of photography anyway and I see no point in adding to that process. Photography is now easy with a smartphone, but that doesn't mean that in most cases, any real quality work comes out of it.
I will acknowledge that there is SOME quality smartphone imagery out there, but quality video? For the vast majority this just isn't the case. But what worries me most of all is that vast majority of people in the world don't seem to care. All that is important is just doing it, no matter how awful it is. It strikes me that most of social media is nasty, bullying and entirely dedicated to some kind of oneupmanship. That the perpetrators of this trash make shitloads of money out of it is truly depressing.
And in terms of camera manufacturers they should get back to making quality cameras that we might want to buy instead of pandering to some lowest common denominator user base. And in terms of vlogging 'JUST SAY NO!!'
