I know what you’re thinking – Flickr is all about photography, so how can it equal the death of photography?
Hear me out.
I was on the Caltrain this afternoon, heading down to Redwood City where I had a meeting and then a Lou Reed concert to attend, and I realized I hadn’t taken my camera with me. Immediately I thought – ah well, it doesn’t matter, someone else will take photos of the concert and I’ll be able to find them on Flickr within hours.
Sure enough – check these out.
Now I could have bothered lugging my camera around. But why? Those photos are exactly what I would have taken and he probably did a better job. What’s the point of 1000 photos of the same thing?
Here’s an example – pick your favourite holiday destination. Pick something iconic about the place that you would normally want to photograph when you were there.
Now search for that thing on Flickr. Find a pretty good photo? So what’s the point of taking your own?
Now, of course, you might be the kind of person who wants to have photos of yourself standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, just in case no-one believes you actually did go to France, or perhaps to prove to yourself you really did go when the Alzheimer’s kicks in.
But really… do you need photos of yourself? What percentage of photos taken on holidays contain people versus icons? I wonder.
By the way, when I was standing in line at the concert, and sitting inside the theatre waiting for the gig to start, I interviewed a bunch of people. It was a lot of fun, I met some great people and it should make the gig tax deductible, right? It’ll be up tomorrow.
Ah but see I take photographs because I love photography. People still like to take their own photos Cam. Then they can bore other people to death by putting together slideshows: “and thats the view from the hotel balcony… and thats the Spanish steps at night. Oops its a bit blurry, should have bought a tripod whilst I was there. They were selling them for next to nothing at Singapore Airport on the way through…” etc
This is going to be a bit Philip K Dick, but I prefer my memories (don’t like buying them… even at wholesale prices). I want to record my life not someone elses. Other people’s fotos on flickr are interesting as a comparision to my memories, but I still want mine… Perhaps this is a bit more Kodak than PKD… Certainly I tend to bore people with my slideshows (just on the laptop) and at least one photo gets a “why did you take a photo of that?” and my response is usually “it looked interesting… at the time”. Sometimes it still is by the time they see it.
But, are you seriously saying that if you did take your camera you wouldn’t have taken a snap or two of the people you spoke to (with or without the sunnies)?
Regardless of other’s photos, I take pictures because it makes me more aware of seeing and observing. It’s not just about the moment the shutter clicks, but everything that leads up to the decision to capture the moment. The picture is almost a byproduct of the process. The journey is the reward, eh?
Folks, I’m glad that some of you will still continue to take photographs for the rest of us. My point wasn’t that all photography will die, just that there seems to be several less reasons to bother taking photographs today. Ten years ago, only professional photographers shared their photographs widely. Today most people do. I’ve just become aware of how my own attitudes to carrying around a camera when travelling have changed as a result of that.
Now if you had a proper camera phone mate…..
I second Urbaer’s comment in that to me photography is an extension of my memories and not someone elses. When I look at someone elses photo of the same location maybe even from the same time it is still not the same to me. I think there is a bit of the creationalism gene there too, where you know you created that frozen moment in time.
Photography won’t die at all in fact it is on a meteoric rise due to converged devices such as mobile phones. Within 5 years from now we’ll have even more exciting photographic devices such as converged camera sunglasses 🙂
There is was an interesting acticle that my wife suggested I read a while back (that I didn’t by the way) that was talking about how the digital camera has increased photograph use and that a lot of people where not looking at life wife there own eyes but through the video screen on their cameras (or something to this effect).
Cam as per the norm you are either:
1) So far ahead of us that we can’t agree with you for a year or two
2) Weird
3) The exact reverse of the rest of the world.
I don’t take a lot of photos of other things, most of my photos and videos are family shots so I guess this isn’t really what your talking about.
Molly
Cam needs the new Samsung 10 megapixel camera phone! Only on Australian transfer rates they’d be no good for MMS.
Especially after my XDA hard reset itself for the THIRD TIME IN A WEEK tonight.
I think it may be trying to tell you that its time for an upgrade Cam.
That many hard resets has to be telling you something. My PDA has only done it once and that was because of a dodgy piece of software on it.
hello cam, the death of photography- a very interesting thought. and one i’ve been thinking about myself, i did photography for my degree, at the time digital photography was just coming in. no-one on my course had or used a digital camera at this stage- it was not yet that popular. we were taught how to use SLR’s, enlargers and tray developing. now you don’t get taught this at all, its all digital.
now, without sounding like a boring old lady, i am saddened that this art is dying. the ‘accidental’ photo will die with it. and the mistakes that are made which result in meaningful art pieces will fade too, do you know what i mean? i know that digital photography is amazing and all that, and that it is more environmentally sound than using all that film, paper and chemicals but i miss it already and it hasn’t died yet.
as a tribute to this i have created some peices of art. they are homage to the fading wonder of photography. i wondered if you know of anyone who might be interested in them?
anyway, thanks for the thought and for your time if you’ve read all this natter, good to know someone else’s considering where photography is going.
see ya, rose.