Taking pictures with a phone is just as ridiculous as virtual sex.
A few days ago I watched an interesting photography lecture given by a famous 80-year-old professor. The lecture was called:
"WHO WILL REINVENT PHOTOGRAPHY?"
Ironic, isn't it? In this strange time, everyone wants to stand out with a new YouTube channel, Facebook page, Tiktok shenanigans or Instagram portfolio. Any so-called photo or video clip becomes visible in seconds. There are simply no editors, no art directors or any kind of visual control.
Ordinary users / our customers /, are irradiated by all this content, losing the idea of art as art. Brand owners start shooting with their phones because they've watched a few videos on the internet
"gurus".
WHAT IS THE FINAL RESULT?
80% of content online is useless! Businesses don't win new customers because of advertising campaigns that look ordinary because everyone with a phone takes pictures like that.
Imagine you have a restaurant. Would you trust a chef who cooks with the most expensive pots and has 2 million followers on Instagram?
Technique doesn't make the shot any more than the pot doesn't make the food taste good.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE...
Years ago, in order to see just one photo, it had to go through the approval of an entire creative team. Then it must be printed on paper - newspaper, magazine, print, poster and so on.
PHOTOSHOP MANIPULATIONS...
Just as many years ago, next to a portrait photographer, there was necessarily a make-up artist. It's also a profession. In fact, the photographer, stylist, make-up artist and lighting are all part of the entire process of creating an image. I won't talk about the darkroom and developing films at all. It's another universe!
Now, the work of the make-up artist, and even the photographer, is shifting from Photoshop. I'm not saying we shouldn't edit our photos!
But what do most of my colleagues do with devices?
They like a "model" / weird looking girl with big fake lips and breasts / from some online page about
"models" and go most often to a studio or a convenient location. They click a few photos, and then several hours of processing / smearing / of the photo begins. These people say:
- There is no point in going to the mountains. We'll shoot in the neighborhood, and then I'll change the background.
- You don't need a makeup artist. I have several brushes. I'll photoshop the face and that's it.
- No, there is no point in waiting for the sunset. Come to my studio because it's cold or warm outside, we'll take pictures and then I'll put on a sunset.
WHY am I writing all this?
It's a pity, really! This whole process changes photography as art! A famous travel photographer from the past said that he waited a whole week for the right clouds for the emotion of the shot. The magazine he worked for provided his hotel accommodation, food and royalties during this time. Now, a photoshop geek just snaps some landscape out of the window, and then adds clouds, birds and whatever he wants. Then he puts photography after his name and people laugh...
THIS IS ABSURD!!
In the thick photography books you can find in libraries it says that photography is painting with light and documenting real objects doing real things! To this day, the greatest photographs in history remain precisely these. Do you remember the picture of the little starving African child and the vulture that raised him to die to eat him?
I have nothing more to add.
THANKS FOR SHARING THIS STORY!
I took the photos with a NIKON 5600.
Color processing: Photoshop.