are photographs improving?

[TMARK]

Right On.

It appears that the amount of effort, focus and drive, in its totality, remains the same as it was prior to digital, while the quantity of photographs exploded.  In other words, there is just more shit out there than there was before picture taking became effortless. 

are photographs improving? to me this is very similar to the rabbit hole of "what equipment is 'better'?"
I agree with the others that yes, by learning digital I became a skilled post-production guy, but at what cost to my front-end creativity? 
The hundreds and hundreds of hours spent incorporating the new technology did what to my seeing, my vision? That is an unknown... I do have more control of the post exposure process and this makes my final prints technically superior and perhaps more akin to my inner pre-exposure experience. That was why a guy like Minor White was a devotee of the zone system, his superior technique allowed more control to the plastic medium, allowing him to express himself more fully.. at least that is the intention, but he had intention, focus and desire to create…not document or decorate.  I see the ad pic above for Moab, of Monument Valley, is it a better image due to its photoshopped enhancements? I don't see it as better but a mild example of what has gone so astray in the medium I really care about.  It is all so easy to snap, sizzle and post that the shear quantity which generated is crazy..it has dumbed down the whole medium and it is days like today that I miss that 8x10, it's successful use demanded purpose..full attention to seeing and craftsmanship.

[bcooter]

Right On.

It appears that the amount of effort, focus and drive, in its totality, remains the same as it was prior to digital, while the quantity of photographs exploded.  In other words, there is just more shit out there than there was before picture taking became effortless. 

There has always been a lot of junk, we just never saw it.  Now it's put in electronic scrapbooks for the world, but like changing the TV channel, it's easy to ignore.

I don't think creativity is dead, In fact I think all the thousands of selfies and see me standing in ___fill in the blanks____ has made the good work stand out even more.

IMO

BC

[Misirlou]

There has always been a lot of junk, we just never saw it.  Now it's put in electronic scrapbooks for the world, but like changing the TV channel, it's easy to ignore.

I don't think creativity is dead, In fact I think all the thousands of selfies and see me standing in ___fill in the blanks____ has made the good work stand out even more.

IMO

BC

It used to amaze me when I lived in Japan (before digital) how the Japanese just loved their selfies. I'd go somewhere exotic, take a few hundred carefully composed slides, without me in any of them. My Japanese friends would be horrified. Disappointed, as if I had no way to show I'd been there.

Then they'd go somewhere on vacation and come back with hundreds of prints, with the date and timestamp printed in the corner, all of themselves standing in front of things. I remember when a group of about 10 of them went to Venice. Each of them would show me the same exact picture, except for who was standing in front of whatever it was they weren't actually shooting.

So, really we've all just become Japanese...

[Alan Klein]

Sounds like some of the slide shows I would be shown at relative's houses years ago of their vacations.  You wanted to tear your hair out!

[ErikKaffehr]

Yes,

I certainly feel so. To begin with we have a faster feedback cycle, learning from mistakes is much faster.

The next factor may be that we probably have more photographers than ever, and quite a few are pretty good.

I would also guess that you need to be pretty good to feed your self as a professional photographer. Myself I have an engineering job to feed me, so for me photography is only a hobby.

Best regards
Erik

[paulmoorestudio]

when George Eastman came out with the kodak brownie and accessible process/printing the wizards behind the curtain, or in this case, dark cloths, must have freaked out..the camera was in the hands of the masses..and yet it was good for photography in the long view.  What has happened to photography in the past 10 years though is a quantum leap by comparison.  The top work is very good and will continue to be but with an explosion at the bottom end the whole gets diluted, I am not talking about selfies published to FB..I don't really see or count those snaps.. I am talking about an explosion of mediocrity in the industry of photography and this has often little to do with the creativity of the photographer..the digital age has changed the creative team process / dynamic of how commercial work gets created. This goes beyond the vast improvement of an instant tethered image on a 30" lcd verses 669 polaroid. When was the last time you were presented a drawn layout with a sketch roughed in for the visual?  How much creativity do you have when the client has already signed-off on the standin photo layout?.. but with digital it is easier to match that approved layout..so maybe it is improving.  

[bcooter]

This has always been a hard business.

Anyone can look back on any industry and pick out the good ol' days, but honestly, it was never that good, it's just people had selective memories.

For everything somebody can point out how much better the past was, I can form an opposite argument of how much worse some elements were. 

Once again this is a hard business if you plan on making you livelihood doing it and it's not for the faint of heart.

Digital has made some things easier, some things cheaper and some projects that require less skill to get mediocre results, but remember just because it's exposed properly or in focus doesn't mean it's not mediocre.

I personally try very hard not to fall into the I could have done that syndrome, because that gets you no where.

I actually think professional imaging (I think photography really isn't the proper terminology anymore) is more interesting and creative than ever, but the past always looks better because it's viewed through a fog filter.

In regards to the changes in my profession, it's the economy that has changed more than the medium.

The wall street journal reported that 82% of all ad managers have lost their jobs in the last 4 years.  That is the hardest hit of any job category by a wide margin and since ad managers hired the people that hired us, well . . . that tells you something.

So my view is digital has change it, but not made it any easier, in some ways much harder, but the decrease in production numbers doesn't come from digital, it comes from an anemic economy and money doesn't buy creativity, but money does buy time and time usually improves any art form.

IMO

BC

[NancyP]

Advertising itself has changed. Social media have become so important that I suspect that people doing the job of ad managers are now called something else "computerese" or just "social media manager".

[NancyP]

The technical quality of photographs is greater than before, and the range of things that can be photographed is greater than before, due to improved technology. Apart from "how did they do that" type of photographs, the level of interest has not gone up. I personally take a fair number of technically adequate images, but only a few are memorable and worth showing to strangers. Strict documentation alone does not make a memorable photograph, there has to be that emotional factor.

[Peter McLennan]

Is one possible without the other?
Rob C

Not always, but sometimes.  A relatively unskilled person can make a superb image by having both luck and technology on their side.  The chances of this happening with a similarly unskilled person and, say, a Speed Graphic are much less.  Better, easier to use cameras result in better pictures.



As NancyP says, "The technical quality of photographs is greater than before, and the range of things that can be photographed is greater than before, due to improved technology". That doesn't mean that suddenly everyone's a photographer.  Far from it, as we see daily.  But it does mean that photographs (and photography) in general have improved.

Similarly, word processors didn't turn everyone into writers.  But they did enable many more people to write, and the quality of much of their writing improved vastly over the days of typewriters.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Nancy P put it very well.

In my own case, I know that there are things that I can accomplish now that were essentially impossible for me back in film days. There is a lot more garbage out there now than there ever was before, but there is also excellent work. For me, the immediate feedback of histogram and instant replay has sharpened my seeing as well as my craft.

[hjulenissen]

I take for granted that as the cost of the tools for production and mass-distribution of photography decrease, there will be more "crap".

The more interesting question is whether the absolute amount of genuinely "good" work stays the same, increases, (or even decreases).

So the conclusion might be that we have to wade through more crap (or find good ways to keep it out of our way), but that we don't know if there will be more gems than before/in an alternate reality. My guess is that there will.

-h

[Rob C]

I take for granted that as the cost of the tools for production and mass-distribution of photography decrease, there will be more "crap".

The more interesting question is whether the absolute amount of genuinely "good" work stays the same, increases, (or even decreases).

So the conclusion might be that we have to wade through more crap (or find good ways to keep it out of our way), but that we don't know if there will be more gems than before/in an alternate reality. My guess is that there will.

-h

You are right, and if you can judge the standard from what you get to see in magazines, for example, I would say that the standard has changed: where there used to be very high emotional content I now see very high production values, but sterile content. In other words, digital makes people glow like inner-lit Halloween masks, but that's what you get: masks. Emotional impact is lost to surface falsehood.

And even worse than that, who believes any photograph anymore? That's a loss that can't be restored. The damage is done, the faith and belief shattered.

Rob C

[Alan Klein]

...And even worse than that, who believes any photograph anymore? That's a loss that can't be restored. The damage is done, the faith and belief shattered.

Rob C

The most deflationary question that you can be asked about your photo: "Did you Photoshop it?"

[jerome_m]

It used to amaze me when I lived in Japan (before digital) how the Japanese just loved their selfies. I'd go somewhere exotic, take a few hundred carefully composed slides, without me in any of them. My Japanese friends would be horrified. Disappointed, as if I had no way to show I'd been there.

Then they'd go somewhere on vacation and come back with hundreds of prints, with the date and timestamp printed in the corner, all of themselves standing in front of things. I remember when a group of about 10 of them went to Venice. Each of them would show me the same exact picture, except for who was standing in front of whatever it was they weren't actually shooting.

So, really we've all just become Japanese...

People have always done that, and not only in Japan. When they go to Venice, for example, most tourists do not want to take a picture of the city or the monuments. They want to take a picture of the known tourist spots (so that their friends recognise Venice) with themselves in the picture (so that they can show they were there). If they want the scenery without themselves in, they buy a postcard. Why would they want to redo a picture of the Rialto when it has already been photographed thousands of times and with better production values that they can achieve?

It has always been so that the vast majority of people wants pictures of themselves. And, if you think about it, it probably makes more sense than what the average "advanced amateurs" do with their pictures.

What has changed is the sheer number of pictures taken. Facebook alone has over 300 billion pictures. It really is a lot, definitely a lot more than what was achievable in times of analogue photography. If you estimate the size of 300 billion pictures printed, you'll come with a small country entirely covered and a paper consumption that will start to show in national statistics. Conversely, since there are many times more picture taken now, their half life, the time they live before being pushed down the Facebook timeline is shorter. They are not better or worse than they used to be, it is still "myself in front of the Rialto", but they change faster.

[Theodoros]

The most deflationary question that you can be asked about your photo: "Did you Photoshop it?"

IMO, it all depends on the visualisation involved, if the action was included, it is accepted… if not….

[Telecaster]

And even worse than that, who believes any photograph anymore? That's a loss that can't be restored. The damage is done, the faith and belief shattered.

Acknowledging the man behind the curtain always involves some discomfort, even some pain. But this was a false belief that merited shattering. It might be a problem for photography as advocacy—Look at these facts and respond (the way I want you to)!—but otherwise IMO it's not an issue.

-Dave-

[Chris Barrett]

Digital has made some things easier, some things cheaper and some projects that require less skill to get mediocre results, but remember just because it's exposed properly or in focus doesn't mean it's not mediocre.

When asked about what digital has done for photography I comment on the pluses and minuses.  On the minus side, digital capture (with auto exposure and auto white balance) has allowed unskilled photographers to become mediocre.  At the same time, shrinking budgets have allowed mediocrity to become perfectly acceptable.

[Kirk Gittings]

When asked about what digital has done for photography I comment on the pluses and minuses.  On the minus side, digital capture (with auto exposure and auto white balance) has allowed unskilled photographers to become mediocre.  At the same time, shrinking budgets have allowed mediocrity to become perfectly acceptable.

[David Eichler]

You are right, and if you can judge the standard from what you get to see in magazines, for example, I would say that the standard has changed: where there used to be very high emotional content I now see very high production values, but sterile content. In other words, digital makes people glow like inner-lit Halloween masks, but that's what you get: masks. Emotional impact is lost to surface falsehood.

And even worse than that, who believes any photograph anymore? That's a loss that can't be restored. The damage is done, the faith and belief shattered.

Rob C

? Photos could be substantially "faked" with film. It is just easier to do it with digital. Anyway, film or digital, photos always lie, retouched or not. The medium itself does it.