A modest proposal

[PeterAit]

I suggest that Lula institutes a moratorium on any photo that contains either blue ice or "cotton" water. Enough is enough, lord have mercy!

[Peter McLennan]

Oh, jeez.  First they banned cats, now this?  Pretty soon there'll be nothing left to photograph! 

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I suggest that Lula institutes a moratorium on any photo that contains either blue ice or "cotton" water. Enough is enough, lord have mercy!

Peter,

Didn't you mean to post this in the Humor thread? 

I'm now waiting for a huge pile of Tangerine Ice photos and "barbed wire" water.   

Eric

[Rob C]

Peter,

Didn't you mean to post this in the Humor thread? 

I'm now waiting for a huge pile of Tangerine Ice photos and "barbed wire" water.   

Eric

Don't worry, Eric: you'll get it!

Funny thing: I have just finished sending an e-mail to a chap (another old pro!) and I made the point that the web has probably done as much harm to photography as help it along.

What with reading about the Playboy difficulties, having a huge list of 'favourites' covering pretty much all the snappers I loved and respected, the availability of so much at any time has ended up making it all feel pretty flat. I suppose it's why Trump did what he did: went for something different in his life.

It's hard when one has seen so much stuff, because everything just ends up being genre, with some very rare examples that excite within some of those genres.

Maybe that's the truth behind the decline in camera sales: apart from the pros, fewer and fewer people think it's worth the bother because it's obviously all been done a zillion times better than most of us have the wit to achieve, and more and more folks realise this... a cellphone is simply all anybody needs 99% of their life. The extra 1%? The hell with it.

Perhaps we have all been making buggy whips after all! That would be a fine irony.

Rob

[Kevin Raber]

I can only reason you bring this up because of my latest top of the home page images.  I'm tending to like the smooth water look these days.  I have been playing with the new Wine Country Filter system which I did a review on.  The system makes doing these exposures a lot more fun.  I'm sure if I would have frozen the water at 1500th of a second, I'd get comments that I must not own a set of ND filters.  You'll get ice and slow water images a lot with me as I spend a lot of time in the polar regions where these images are abundant.  You'll also get other images too.

I think Rob has a point with his comment.  I have been toying around with a Rant on this very topic.  It seems we could say the same thing about almost any photo.  Be it slot canyons, fall colors of trees, northern lights etc..  I enjoy taking photos and the process involved in doing so both pre and post.  So, once in a while you'll have to see one of my smooth water blue iceberg images, I have lots of them and they look a lot better than nonsmooth water.  And, fair warning I also have a series on rust coming up as well as double exposures.  I am having fun though. 

[churly]

Keep having fun Kevin.  Rob is right only if the final image is the point.  For many of us it is about the process.

Chuck

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

For many of us it is about the process.

Chuck

Which reminds me of my 8x10" view camera days. Some of the best fun I had with that monster was simply looking at scenes on the ground glass, with no film used at all!
Yes, having fun is what it's all about, as far as I'm concerned!

Eric

[Peter McLennan]

And, fair warning I also have a series on rust coming up as well as double exposures.  I am having fun though.

Heh.  Well, said, Kevin. Especially the part about having fun. "If it ain't fun, we shouldn't be doing it"

There is a lot of truth to what Rob says, too. :

a cellphone is simply all anybody needs 99% of their life. The extra 1%? The hell with it.
Perhaps we have all been making buggy whips after all! That would be a fine irony.

What if photography simply became so good, so easy, so common, that it just bit itself on the ass and bled to death?

[Rob C]

Heh.  Well, said, Kevin. Especially the part about having fun. "If it ain't fun, we shouldn't be doing it"

There is a lot of truth to what Rob says, too. :

a cellphone is simply all anybody needs 99% of their life. The extra 1%? The hell with it.
Perhaps we have all been making buggy whips after all! That would be a fine irony.

What if photography simply became so good, so easy, so common, that it just bit itself on the ass and bled to death?

I think the bite happened a while back, and came in two nibbles: it came as a sensor that opened the door to 'free' pictures, and in direct consequence of that, let me quote the next part of the killing from the Ontario photographer who wrote the very clever Trump take-off:

"Our photographers are the best photographers in the world. The best. You can hire them, you can pay them with opportunities for exposure, the best way to pay." ............ Glenn Springer

I believe that if you remove what was once the glamour, the sex-appeal of the professional photographer (no, not the High Street guy) you at once take away a lot of the 'wannabe' part of the mixture that certainly attracted a lot of us to photography. It promised to provide a passport to all manner of interesting and exciting things in life: travel, magazine exposure, posters the size of buildings (wow - that fit your ego?) breathtaking women, sports, wars, an endless list of things usually denied mere mortals.

But now, with magazines slowly going further downmarket in a hopeless endeavour to catch the widest common denominator, going off-print and, thus, losing a lot of their tactile pleasures, the spìral to the bottom seems faster than ever.

So, who's going to be left still wanting to spend a lifetime working down that particular pit?

Remove the dream and you have nothing much left behind. Which probaby explains, in part, the mess of ancillary materials that now surround photography, the once ultimate means of self-expression that a non-artist could explore? I'm afraid we're left with the solids that couldn't pass down the sinkhole in that bath. Pity the baby was so thin.

Rob

[Paulo Bizarro]

I suggest that Lula institutes a moratorium on any photo that contains either blue ice or "cotton" water. Enough is enough, lord have mercy!

I like this genre. I like good photos from any genre. As for cellphones, what is the problem? 10 years ago it was the compact camera who got the blame. Cellphones just make life a lot easier, with all the sharing apps and stuff.

[Rob C]

I like this genre. I like good photos from any genre. As for cellphones, what is the problem? 10 years ago it was the compact camera who got the blame. Cellphones just make life a lot easier, with all the sharing apps and stuff.

There isn't one, unless you make and sell cameras.

As I write, they, cellphones, solve 99% of needs.

Rob

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I can't use a cell phone, because I don't have an 11-year-old around to show me how to do it. 
 

[Rob C]

I can't use a cell phone, because I don't have an 11-year-old around to show me how to do it. 
 

At your age you should already know how to do it, and doing it with a minor is a very serious offence, even if said minor is just teaching you how to do it. Look at Polanski, poor old Jerry Lee et al. and think again: it could ruin your whole career.

Stay with the three b's: basic, black bakelite model.

Rob

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

So here's how I use a cell phone. First I pick up the receiver and turn the crank and ask for the Operator. When she answers, I tell her that I want to talk to Sally in the big house with the Maple tree in the front yard, and she puts me through.

How am I supposed to do this on a little gizmo that is smaller than my hand? And what's all this about "swiping" and the like?

[32BT]

I can't use a cell phone, because I don't have an 11-year-old around to show me how to do it. 

Ha, just buy a tablet then, and go to the local flowershow. It"s amazing how quickly the geriatric lot have managed to adopt the tablet-as-a-camera, no doubt inspired by the combination of screen-real-estate and fading eye-sight.

They will happily help you to get up and running, of course, only after you have oohhed & aaahhed at the pictures of their 10'000 grand children and greatgrandchildren.

Now that i think of it: perhaps we should start a crowdfunding initiative to buy Rob a tablet?

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Tablet?
I want a tablet that has at least a thirty-inch screen, which I can fold up and carry in my shirt pocket!

[Rob C]

Ha, just buy a tablet then, and go to the local flowershow. It"s amazing how quickly the geriatric lot have managed to adopt the tablet-as-a-camera, no doubt inspired by the combination of screen-real-estate and fading eye-sight.

They will happily help you to get up and running, of course, only after you have oohhed & aaahhed at the pictures of their 10'000 grand children and greatgrandchildren.

Now that i think of it: perhaps we should start a crowdfunding initiative to buy Rob a tablet?

What intentional harm have I ever done anyone?

I sit at home, most evenings, listening to either of two of the swamp pop rock radio stations I've found (never both together), twiddling the pictures of the moment recent past and creating layouts for my new project; surely, no person living can be less guilty of wilful harm to anyone else?

If you want to crowdfund me, find me a way of making money in large amounts, rapidly, and without much effort on my part!

Rob

[BJL]

As for cellphones, what is the problem? 10 years ago it was the compact camera who got the blame.

There isn't one, unless you make and sell cameras.

Agreed!  In the long arc of photographic history, mobile phones have mostly taken the role formerly occupied by Kodak's Brownies and then Instamatics, along with some entry-level SLR kits with a lens that was never interchanged.

(Maybe Kodak should have jumped into the phone sensor market while it was still the sensor tech king.)

[Peter McLennan]

I bought my wife an iPad and I haven't seen her since. 

It's a remarkable Internet appliance.  Especially the Pro version.  Size matters.

[LesPalenik]

It's hard when one has seen so much stuff, because everything just ends up being genre, with some very rare examples that excite within some of those genres.
...
Rob

It seems that most photographers want to photograph exactly the same object or genre they were inspired by (only they want to make it better) - whether it is a non-descript silky water creek, Bridalveil Fall, or Antelope Canyon. Interestingly, there is one individual who came up with a not-seen-before phantom idea in the Antelope Canyon and monetized it in an unpresidented way.