It’s amazing what you can do with Cameras nowadays. They now come with connectivity for MP3 Music, Data Storage, Video and WiFi connectivity but is it all a case of just too much.
As someone who started out in photography nearly 30 years ago in the days of the manual Olympus OM1 (totally manual, nothing automatic at all) where the eye, a sense of what to look for a in a shot and common sense was everything things are certainly different nowadays.
Now before people shout me down for being a luddite and for harping on about the “halcyon days of yore” I don’t totally disagree with technical innovation as that in itself would be totally stupid. My only point is this. When virtually everything is done for you where does it leave innate talent and a flair for the right picture?
OK so the argument will go that if you make things easier for everyone and a lot less for people to think about then surely if there are more people happily pursuing a hobby then it has to be good all-round? I’m not so sure on that one and I think that if you were to ask many a conventional Portrait Photographer in many a small town the same question I think the answer would be best described by the increasing number of small portrait photographers going out of business.
Technological advances are a great thing and making peoples lives easier cannot be faulted it is just that when you make what has hitherto been the domain of people who had to train long and hard for it the habitat of the brain dead then you had better beware the outcome. For my own viewpoint, yes there has been a massive growth of people indulging in photography but this has also been accompanied by a huge increase in the absolute junk that the majority of people try and convince themselves is worthwhile photography.
A good photo should be able to tell a story in its own right completely unaided by a verbal commentary. When you have to constantly tell people that they really had to be there to experience this and that then that is the time to go back to the day job……..rant over (just my 2p).
