Digitization may have had bad effects by making us more inclined to take pictures, but it is also helping us to be environmentally friendlier.
By not using film, we are doing away with hydroxylated benzene compounds, for example, employed in film developing---it this what you mean?
That's one. Think also about all the paper that we would have needed to print out the massive amount of shots that people take nowadays.
I see quite a few mediocre pictures taken by amateur photographers on the web for sale, followed by raving comments. It is all thanks to technological progress.
What's wrong with that? I thought you knew that we shouldn't expect to agree on matters of taste. You must be simply overwhelmed by the explosion of the number of photographic work that you are exposed to.
You're right. With digital cameras and the Internet, we have suddenly gained access to more shots. It is also true that I wouldn't be complaining if there were more of good ones compared to bad ones.
Last time you said that there are many more good amateur photographers than before, and that was not only the sheer number, but their proportion has increased.
When the numbers of both the good and the bad go up, we tend to focus on the increase of the bad. The same applies to anything from donation versus theft, safe versus reckless driving, etc., to cafés serving good coffee versus bad coffee.
If it is not the improvement in the average quality of amateur photography, what exactly is bothering you?
One is their eagerness to sell the work, rather than simply share. It is not that they turn to selling, because there is no other means to verify the quality of their efforts. Many of us think about putting it up for sale as soon as we create it.
Isn't that natural during this economically difficult time?
There has been a growing trend to commercialize whatever possible, and that is in terms longer than the usual ups and downs of business cycles. It doesn't give me good feelings.
Is it alienation à la Karl Marx?
Congratulations, my dear comrade, although I must say that it was rather elementary.
Now tell me, did you intend it to be a praise or an insult?
Che Guevara said, "Man really attains the state of complete humanity when he produces, without being forced by physical need to sell himself as a commodity." We can extrapolate that to "without being forced to sell what he produces as a commodity," and I am more than 100% certain that he would give me a ride on his motorcycle upon hearing this.
Most people are not forced to sell their pictures, but they want to.
How can you say that we are not the victims of le capitalisme anglo-saxon?
We can say so as much as we are of our own culture or society.
We are forced to think in a certain way and that unconsciously by the society we live in, and the economic system is one of the important facets of a society.
At the same time, we are the ones who are the parts of that whole. So, we ourselves are responsible for whatever happens in our society to some extent. As for me, I have never said anything like, "Making so little? Are you an id..."
But the responsibilities are far from equal. Think about Joseph Stalin. You would agree that he had done much more than the rest in the USSR to mold the Soviet culture and history.
Or Billy Graham... It all stems from the fact that many people are not independent thinkers, but followers, doesn't it?
To a degree, yes. As for the lure of money, it is so powerful that we do not need proselytizing. Money allows us to possess far beyond what we can produce ourselves. In other words, it appeals to our base desire, and there lies the strength of capitalism.
Why did we not see earlier the extent of commercialization that we have today?
First of all, technological progress has made many more products and services available. There are literally zillion more ways to spend money, which gives zillion more reasons to make more money. Secondly, with the arrival of modernism, almost all the social constraints on what we are allowed to own have disappeared. You don't have to read much in economic anthropology to be struck by how much social conventions used to dictate what we may own.
For example?
In many pre-industrialization societies, what kind of role you should play in the community is determined by your gender and age. That is translated into what kind of house and other household goods you must have in unambiguous terms. Moreover, they are provided by the community, because production of most things requires collaboration.
It is still true that I cannot manufacture a motorcycle on my own. I think even Che would agree that I have to purchase one.
That's where this elaborate exchange system that uses money as the medium comes into play. Under a barter system, you need to have exactly what the motorcycle manufacturer would like to get in exchange, but money has eliminated the need of coincidence of wants.
So modern capitalism liberates us!
It alienates us, too. The rise of post-modernism testifies that we were not completely satisfied with what the industrialization and the concomitant development of capitalism brought us.
Where does that alienation come from?
I think the root is in the change of our focus. In the case of photography, instead of aiming for something that is artistic or that is satisfactory to the photographer, the goal becomes getting a shot that would make someone take out her/his wallet from the pocket.
What others want to buy is not going to be very different from what you want to buy, and hence, from what you want to possess and further produce, doesn't it? If so, there is no change in focus as you claim.
You must have heard of artists' agony to create what they do believe in versus what would sell. It's an age-old problem.
My argument is logically impeccable, though.
Creative persons are so, precisely because they are different in taste from others. If s/he produces work that you can see anywhere, we wouldn't think that s/he is creative. Bigger profits are obtained by selling to more people. That means you would like to appeal to the most common denominator, and we know what that consists of.
To rake in the most profit is to be good at mediocrity?
I would say to aim at a tiny bit beyond so that the masses would appreciate the difference: not exactly mediocre that it appears banal to them, and not too off the main-stream that it becomes beyond their comprehension.
You are so disparaging at times, you know... Many say that they take pictures for fun. They claim that, if the pictures sell, they are all the happier, but they would remain happy even if nobody buys.
Once the price is posted, it will be difficult not to take the absence of a buyer negatively. Think about it, you are putting your work on offer, and if there are no takers...
That is another addictive aspect of capitalism. We are prone to take sale as something that endorses our very selves and non-sale as rejection of us as persons.
That is normal psychology when you offer something that you own, including yourself. The ultimate case is declaring romantic love for someone.
The feelings of triumph, pride, and joy, or those of defeat, self-loathing, and anger.
If you say you will do anything for the one that you love, that translates into pricing yourself zero or even negative... Getting back to how many more pictures people take these days, I think we are sacrificing quality at the expense of quantity.
That's the usual rule for quality and quantity.
I disapprove of the casualness.
Should we care if you approve of it or not?
...
Okay, let me ask why not?
It is usually quite distracting and inappropriate.
I understand the distracting part, but why inappropriate? If you see something beautiful, you would like to take a picture of it, too, wouldn't you?
I do not know any object that came into being exclusively for photo taking, excepting those made by photographers for photographic art or shows organized for shooting purposes. That means taking pictures is never of primary importance to the object or the scene that we try to capture with our camera.
A temple or a church is a place of worship, but as tourists, we take pictures instead of meditating or praying---that kind of a thing?
Precisely. Instead of consoling the survivors, we photograph the exotic costumes and the ornaments of a funeral. Instead of purchasing a strangely shaped fruit from a street vendor, we take a picture of it, and so on.
And when there are too many serious photographers around, it's a chaos.
Just as there are basic manners that tourists should observe as intruders to the everyday life of the places we visit, there are also manners for tourist-photographers.
Such as not standing in front of another person with a scary face and a camera in his hand, right?
You got it all wrong...
It's a joke... By the way, how much are you asking for your pictures? ... It's a joke. Trust me!
All right, how much are you offering?
... Comrade, I am truly scandalized!
It's a joke, trust me...
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