“ “We are enduring an era marred by the globalisation of superficiality. With a magazine such as Photo Technique there was a ready made data source, constantly accessible on the book shelf. (I used to actually tag articles of special interest.) With the internet the gems of info are hidden by the plethora of verbal detritus and are only fleetingly at hand”. WalterEG”
I think it’s worse than that; I think many of the ‘experts’ are expert only within the confines of their own imagination.
Cooter mentioned somewhere on LuLa that there’s been a cut of around 80% or so of advertising manager numbers. To me, that tells a tale more wide than simply a reflection of the opportunities being lost to advertising photographers: it tells me that the world just doesn’t care, doesn’t give a stuff about seeing attractive advertisements, commercials or anything else: all it wants is anonymous, on-line cheap, cheaper and cheaper yet. So it gets what it deserves: a pile of crap that gets sent back time after time until something actually works and does close to what it promised on the monitor. Lenses, anyone? And the underlying horror? That people accept it as normal.
My website’s based on Weebly, and for long enough all worked well. Then, I found great difficulty getting into the system in order to edit my site. I eventually discovered that the PS-dedicated computer, running XP, usually not Internet-connected, still got me in, in a roundabout way, and I carried on editing through it, instead of the other, permanently Internet-connected one. Now, neither computer lets me get into my website via Weebly in order to edit. Weebly has tried to help, but so far, zilch. Yesterday I downloaded Explorer 9 to replace my 8, because at one stage the Weebly site rewarded my efforts by telling me that my browser was too old to be recognized… And Explore 9 is meant to be an improvement? Really? So far, it is brash in the extreme and as opaque as the waters of the Clyde at Clyde Street, Glasgow.
The funny thing is, my troubles began when Weebly allowed Facebook to enter the game. Each time I try to get into Weebly to edit, I am presented with what looks like a Facebook promotion, asking me to register, and get into my site via Facebook! Fuck Facebook, I want no part of them or twitter or tweet or any of these goddamn stupid teenage-or-younger things that hold zero interest for me nor relevance to my life! So yes, everything is being brought down to an ever-lower common denominator. Just as with magazine covers, where once ruled elegant, simple and clean design, but now we have the literary equivalents of the facades of second-hand toothpick shops, the entire Contents page in your face in one fell swoop! One used to buy a magazine because one was interested in it and its style/contents per se; now, the hook is in a single bit of hoped-for gratification that you might imagine from a single line on a random cover.
I hate what’s being done to elegance, usefulness and good design. And to my nervous state; that scares me rather than angers.
Rob C