# The Re-Inventon of a Dead Horse



## sashbar (Nov 14, 2013)

I decided to start a new thread with this quote from Derrel,  because the article he mentioned is worth reading and discussing, methinks.  



Derrel said:


> ... maybe you two can take heart6 from this interesting column Kirk Tuck wrote not too long ago, after having attended the PDN photo show in NYC recently.
> 
> The Graying Of Traditional Photography And Why Everything Is Getting Re-Invented In A Form We Don't Understand By Kirk Tuck | DIYPhotography.net



The most interesting part in this article to me personally is the question in the headline, which in fact was not answered: *why* everything is getting re-invented?  

He wrote about the new generation: "It's no longer enough to get something in focus, well exposed and color correct. It's no longer good enough to fix all the "flaws" in Photoshop. What the important audience wants now is the narrative, the story, the "why" and not the "how." The love,not the schematic". 

But Kirk Tuck does not say why the "why" became more important than "how". Some would say, because these days our cameras know "how", so we may concentrate on "why". I think there is more than that. 

 Funny enough only yesterday I wrote about an image here in TPF and mentioned exactly that: I did not care how it was shot, if it was a snapshot or a masterpiece, because more important to me was the story it gave me. And that is exactly how I feel about most images these days. Technical perfection does not wow me anymore. Why? Because the world is already over-saturated with technically perfect images. It is everywhere, every commercial, every poster you see, every postcard that falls through you letter hole is technically perfect. Every landscape that is worth a quick look was shot from dawn to dusk. Perfection is devalued. The beauty is devalued, we need to look further than a beautiful skin tone to appreciate the  beauty. Not long ago a perfect photo would live a generation. These days it is disposable within a day. Only masterpieces that go far beyond beauty survive. 

A technically perfect image of a perfectly beautiful woman is cheap as chips - they are everywhere you look: form travel brochures to dental floss commercials. Even porn is becoming increasingly glossy. So there is nothing more mundane, dull and boring to me, than a photo of a cat or a beautiful woman. (Probably a photo of a beautiful woman with a cat would beat that).  Because every cat and every beautiful woman on Earth was already shot to perfection 147 times at the very least. If we extract all silver photobullets from cats and beautiful women, we can build a new shining Berlin Wall that will stretch to Jupiter. And back to Earth. Twice.  

I am not able to appreciate technical Excellency anymore, even though I still remember my darkroom torture when a teenager and my crap photos from my Olympus film P&S of the late 80-s. I became more democratic. These days we pick up a free glossy magazine in a supermarket and expect perfectly constructed, exposed ( in more than one sense) and pp-ed images on every page, just as we expect our microwave to turn on when we press the button and our car engine start when we turn the key. Or press the button, if you have a modern car. 

That is exactly why technical perfection does not wow the new generation. That is why I am not buying a Full Frame camera &#8211; I have  a feeling that I would jump on a train that goes to the theatre with no spectators. And no show. 

I would say that &#8220;perfection&#8221; should be replaced by the more important or decisive definition these days: an aesthetic threshold - an image quality that is good enough for people to appreciate photography. iPhone 5 has crossed this threshold lately and that is why big camera manufacturers are so worried.

Again, quote: "So, what does this mean for the camera industry? It means that incremental improvements in quality no longer mean **** to a huge and restless younger market. They don't care if the image is 99% perfect if the content is exhilarating and captivating. No one cared if the Hobbit was available at 48 fps as long as the story was strong in 24 fps. No one cares if a landscape is perfect if there's a reason for the image of a landscape to exist. No one cares if a model is perfect if the model is beguiling".

The big question is - is it all good or bad for photography? 

I believe it is great. It liberates image making from technical shackles and exposes creatively limited and artistically hopeless photographers who major on technical prowess. It exposes them the way a good music exposes a drummer who learned how to hit his drum 20 times per second with precision, but is unable to follow the tune. It exposes gear geeks, camera snobs, bokeh experts and those jolly fellows who's main priority in photography is to get laid. (I would not be so sure about the last category, though. No, these guys will survive, god bless them)

Anyway, the new generation may be obnoxious about the true "quality" of an image, do not give a **** about bokeh (I applaud here), may never ever heard about Gestalt principles and have no idea who this Fibonacci bloke is, BUT there is one important thing the new generation gets absolutely right: creativeness and content are more important to them than form and technique. That means that a lot of creative talents will get nowhere because of their technical ineptitude, but there is a chance that new ideas will be brought into photography and we all will be rescued from the unenviable fate of beating a dead horse with a more and more sophisticated photo stick.  

What are your thoughts, guys? And read the article, it gives you a lot of food for thought.


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## pgriz (Nov 14, 2013)

The thing is, technical perfection is "easy".  Genuine emotional engagement is hard.  It's the same whether playing music, or making photographs, or painting. 

Doing the technical stuff is easy because you can get it down to a formula, and buy the tools (hardware, software) to do it.  You can teach it.  You can set up the lights.  You can HDR/stack it.  It's you and the "thing".

Emotional engagement, on the other hand, is a much trickier thing to teach or create.   Because now we have the viewer to think about.  Heck, we got lots of potential viewers to think about.  Now the image is a delivery vehicle for emotional triggers.  And this part is the one that we're just not very good at.  Sure, on a superficial level, everybody (well, almost everybody) responds to pictures of cute animals, especially with large eyes...  And we do respond on a somewhat deeper level to images of human pain and suffering.  But how many times can we say we see an image and are emotionally affected?  I'd venture to say, rarely.  And why is that?


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## Steve5D (Nov 14, 2013)

sashbar said:


> What the important audience wants now is the narrative, the story, the "why" and not the "how." The love,not the schematic".



I don't know that I've ever had someone look at one of my images and be impressed (or not, as the case may be) with the technical merits of it it. No one has ever cared what my f-stop was, or what ISO I was shooting at. They simply care about the image, and they always have...



> The big question is - is it all good or bad for photography?



Well, considering that "the image" is what matters in photography, I guess I think it's a good thing. But it is what it is, and it always has been...



> That means that a lot of creative talents will get nowhere because of their technical ineptitude...



And yet, just the other day, someone posted a thread regarding a 3- year old in Africa who was having his first gallery showing. I'd go out on a limb and say that kid doesn't enjoy a high level of technical proficiency.

But, again, he doesn't have to...


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## SCraig (Nov 14, 2013)

sashbar said:


> ... He wrote about the new generation: "It's no longer enough to get something in focus, well exposed and color correct. It's no longer good enough to fix all the "flaws" in Photoshop. What the important audience wants now is the narrative, the story, the "why" and not the "how." The love,not the schematic".
> 
> But Kirk Tuck does not say why the "why" became more important than "how". Some would say, because these days our cameras know "how", so we may concentrate on "why". I think there is more than that.


I feel that it's because that is what the world wants these days.  Years ago people wanted to know "How" or "Why" something worked the way that it did but today most people are only concerned with results.  As long as it works who cares how it got there?  This leaves them more time in the day to worry about moving money from one pile to another pile.

Knowledge used to be the ultimate incentive.  People learned things because they wanted to, because their thirst to know how and why things worked the way that they do was insatiable.  These days knowledge has taken a second (or third, or fourth) place to the almighty dollar.  Nobody wants to work any more, they only want to get paid, and they are looking for any and all shortcuts that will allow them to obtain the maximum amount of money with the minimum amount of effort.


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

I read Tuck's piece a while back, and honestly don't recall this particular theme in it. Not to say it's not there, obviously, but I am going to respond here not to Tuck, but to the thread!

To say that "why" has recently become more important than "how" is simply wrong. "Why" and "what" have always mattered more than "how". The obsession with method has always been with us, but serious people have never paid much attention to it.


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## The_Traveler (Nov 14, 2013)

The first two posts here, by Sashbar and pgriz, really summarize both the reality, as I see it, and my personal convictions about the future.

Especially this 





> It liberates image making from technical shackles and exposes creatively limited and artistically hopeless photographers who major on technical prowess.  It exposes gear geeks, camera snobs, bokeh experts and those jolly fellows who's main priority in photography is to get laid.



I like technical perfection and I love to sink into a well exposed high-MP image, but that's something else. It's personal and it has nothing at all with the creation of art.


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

Having re-read Tuck's piece, I see now, better, what he's saying.

He's not saying that the technical details, the "how", have suddenly been moved aside in favor of "what" and "why". He's not claiming that up until now everyone's been mainly interested in technique, not content. He's simply saying that technical stuff is a done deal. Nobody cares about technical stuff any more, because to the extent that it matters, it's a given.

To expand on what he's saying, I think he means that the younger generation (and, frankly, anyone at all who's been paying attention) don't care about technique. If they want an uber-sharp ultimate DoF landscape, they just grab the right gear and do it, duh. What's the problem? Technique? Up yours, the technical stuff is now trivial: get the gear that does the thing, fuss with it a bit, sure you gotta learn a little this and that but it's just not hard. You just _do it_.

This is annoying as hell to gearheads, who spend a lot of time mastering technique. Some people still labor over the exposure triangle. If you read some posts on TPF, you'll get the impression that the Exposure Triangle is deep magic, and that a young acolyte should probably spend a year with a vow of silence, to master it. This is crap. a) who cares, the camera can do a decent job on exposure by itself and if it doesn't dial in some exposure compensation until chimping tells you it looks good. b) it's simply not very hard to figure out.

This extends to many other areas. Modern techniques like focus stacking and HDR are things "to be mastered" to some, and to others "if I need it I'll watch a couple tutorials, and I'll _just friggin do it, jeez_"

Content has always mattered to serious people. That is not in fact a change. What's changed is the relative importance of it. Since technical hoohaw is simply taken for granted, it's done, we needn't discuss it, then content becomes the only thing that matters.

This is a good thing. This is a step forward.

Photography has always moved in this direction. Wet plate. Dry plate. Film. Roll film. Digital cameras. Cell phone cameras. Really good cell phone cameras. Light-field cameras.

It's a progression from an utter mess of really quite complicated and dangerous chemistry to "press the damn button", but always with the underlying fundamental act of photography:

_Put the camera in a good place, point it in the right direction, and make an exposure._

Have we reduced photography as a process entirely to that fundamental act? Not quite, but we're getting there. And that's a good thing.


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## sashbar (Nov 14, 2013)

SCraig said:


> Knowledge used to be the ultimate incentive.  People learned things because they wanted to, because their thirst to know how and why things worked the way that they do was insatiable.  These days knowledge has taken a second (or third, or fourth) place to the almighty dollar.  Nobody wants to work any more, they only want to get paid, and they are looking for any and all shortcuts that will allow them to obtain the maximum amount of money with the minimum amount of effort.



Scott, you reminded me of my old Uni teacher. She was The Queen of a Slide Rule and her nickname was Bloody Mary. She was a true Slide Rule virtuoso and we were hopeless. Her calculation speed was just jaw dropping, and we kept making mistakes all the time. Then one day suddenly ( literally within a week or so)  everyone got a calculator. And the slide ruler was dead. She was devastated, because as a teacher, without a slide ruler, let's be honest, she was quite poor. She even tried to convince us that a slide ruler was good for our brain, unlike that stupid electronic calculator that makes no mistakes. Predictably, poor Blody Mary was left alone with her Knowledge. Probably she thought we were a lazy generation, always looking for shortcuts, trying to do things with the minimum of effort.. Unlike us she was not excited by the fact that a calculator works million times faster than any slide ruler and never ever makes mistakes. Probably she would say that a cube root of 267549, calculated on a ruler, would have a different smell and color and ultimately is more human..


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## limr (Nov 14, 2013)

I'm not convinced that the 'why' is conscious. History is cyclical. The impressionists rejected realism and painted dots. Henri Breton and the surrealists of the early 20th century rejected the rigid structure of Victorian literature and created free-flowing narratives that had no resolution, but you could still emotionally connect to. Art, literature, fashion...when they get saturated with one thing for long enough, eventually people get frisky and start kicking back and so the pendulum swings. All the slick techno music or hair bands of the 80s got smashed the first time "Smells Like Teen Spirit" played on the radio.

So are people tired of the same old shtick and looking for something new? Yes. Why? Dunno - human nature? And in a sense - perhaps not in these particular details, but certainly in spirit - rejecting technical perfection in the search for emotional connection and creative content is only 'new to them' because they don't realize it's been done before. (Whoever 'they' are...).


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## sashbar (Nov 14, 2013)

amolitor said:


> Having re-read Tuck's piece, I see now, better, what he's saying.
> 
> He's not saying that the technical details, the "how", have suddenly been moved aside in favor of "what" and "why". He's not claiming that up until now everyone's been mainly interested in technique, not content. He's simply saying that technical stuff is a done deal. Nobody cares about technical stuff any more, because to the extent that it matters, it's a given.
> 
> ...



Amolitor, I am afraid you have to re-read it again   He is not talking about the technical stuff as such. He is saying that because the technical suff is a done deal,  people are not interested in a perfect technical quality of an image anymore. They do not care if it is "tack sharp" or perfectly exposed - exactly because it is a done deal and can be done easily these days. Everyone can do it, and because of that it is everywhere and it has lost its value. So the content, the creative idea, the narrative, the story is becoming a king.


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

Certainly to the extent that lo-fi is a thing, it's cyclical.

We have Robinson telling people that sharpness is important, that photography is essentially _about_ sharpness and detail, and to not render as much detail as possible is a fundamental betrayal of the form (which is actually a pretty good argument). In 1869 or so.

We have Cameron making portraits starting around the same time, quite fuzzy ones, and beyond roundly denounced by Robinson and others, but not everyone.

Pictorialism moves on to a sort of impressionism, with gum bichromate smudginess abounding through the turn of the century. By 1920 or so we're back to 'it has to be all sharp all the time' which, surprisingly, kind of sticks with us for quite a while, at least here in the USA. The iron hand of Ansel Adams is probably a major culprit here.

Over the last 20 years or so lomography pops up, probably informed by the 20 years or photography before that when Adams grasp starts to loosen.

The war rages on, and I suppose it always will, and somewhere in there we get cycles of technique matters/doesn't, sharpness matters/doesn't, and so on. Now that anything you like is pretty much available at a button-press I don't think the war is going away, but at least people will be able to pick a side, or switch sides, with the press of a button.


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## SnappingShark (Nov 14, 2013)

Are we going to end up with nobody in this world who is capable of shooting a technically correct shot, yet have thousands of instagram images portraying the moments of somebody's lives?

Is the skill, the artform dying out? We still NEED people to know the skills and the technical know-how. For that's how some people make a living: providing us with all the perfect images you see in magazines etc.

I wish this generation wanted to know the hows and the whys.


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

sashbar said:


> Amolitor, I am afraid you have to re-read it again   He is not talking about the technical stuff as such. He is saying that because the technical suff is a done deal,  people are not interested in a perfect technical quality of an image anymore. They do not care if it is "tack sharp" or perfectly exposed - exactly because it is a done deal and can be done easily these days. Everyone can do it, and because of that it is everywhere and it has lost its value. So the content, the creative idea, the narrative, the story is becoming a king.



Fair point, and he's right. If technique is a done deal, then naturally people will care less about it. If gum bichromate, lomography, f/64, pictorialist, etc, approaches to rendering are all a button-press away, then we're less invested in which one you choose. Now you choose whatever suits your mood or the work, because you can, and because you don't care all that much. Or at any rate the option is available. There will always be people who will superglue their photoshop settings to "gum bichromate rendering only as God intended" but whatever. That too is an option.

Another side remark he makes is that since we're all digital all the time, anything over a couple thousand pixels on an edge is a waste of time, in the final product. Which is true, to some extent. I think photography is bifurcating into two quite different media, in fact, one of which is purely digital and one of which is print. The print side is much smaller, and may not even survive in the long term, but it's fundamentally different in important ways.


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## limr (Nov 14, 2013)

BrightByNature said:


> Are we going to end up with nobody in this world who is capable of shooting a technically correct shot, yet have thousands of instagram images portraying the moments of somebody's lives?
> 
> Is the skill, the artform dying out? We still NEED people to know the skills and the technical know-how. For that's how some people make a living: providing us with all the perfect images you see in magazines etc.
> 
> I wish this generation wanted to know the hows and the whys.



No, there will always be people interested in the how and why. But the fact that the vast majority of people *don't* want to know is nothing new. Most people most of the time don't want to know. Some even revel in their not knowing. For them, Kodak made box cameras and roll film more than a hundred years ago. For them, paperback pulp fiction is written and sold in drugstores. For them, we now have cell phone cameras. Most people will always be more interested in consuming rather than creating.

But there were people who took the simple tools and went beyond point and shoot and learned how to create more with them. And they also learned how to use more complicated tools, and they continued to create. Just as the consumers won't go away, neither will the creators.


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

sashbar said:


> I decided to start a new thread with this quote from Derrel, because the article he mentioned is worth reading and discussing, methinks.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I guess I have the same problem with this as I have with most articles and opinion pieces that try to talk about the "new generation" or "next generation" - they all make the same assumptions and they all ridiculously assume that everyone from the next generation thinks/acts/behaves the same way, and will still have the exact same mindsets and attitudes 20 years from now.  This is just not the case, it never has been and it never will be.  I was also struck by one other thought, a recent experience I had when cleaning out the garage with some help from my eldest daughter.

My own daughters are growing up in a world in which they had no exposure to 8 track tapes.  Even my eldest (who is now in her 20's) had no idea what an 8 track was until we stumbled across one cleaning out the garage and I gave her a demo.  She laughed - she simply couldn't believe that music once came out on a tape cartridge that was far larger than any MP3 player she had ever owned, and the notion of having to pull the tape out and flip it over in the middle of a song was completely ludicrious to her.

The music makers of her generation will never have to contend with such techincial issues when delivering their product to the consumer.  But here's what hit me recently - you know what, even with all of that Justin Bieber music still sucks.

The "Bieb" never had to deal with out of date, poor quality recording methods - no pop and hiss of the vinyl - he has all the electronic reverb and doodads to jazz up his voice.  Every electronic gizmo in the world.  Kid still couldn't hold a candle to the greats - Billie Holiday, just to name one.  Technical sophistication is great - it makes things easier to do, corrects for a lot of mistakes.  But in the end talent is just talent, and all the technical sophistication in the world simply can't be used to replace it.


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## pgriz (Nov 14, 2013)

What?  Why?  Where?  When?  Who?  

These are relevant questions.  The "How?" is usually less relevant.  But not totally irrelevant, as the phrase "The ends justify the means." warns us.  For to ignore the "how" is to take at face value whatever image we are looking at.    And while this may be fine in an artistic way, it also hides the reason of creation of the image from us.  This becomes a problem in propaganda, whether political, commercial, ideological, religious, or sectarian.  So while we should not be slaves at the altar of technical excellence, we should be aware of how images can be manipulated. 

My mother, who survived a dictatorship, and then WWII as a refugee, taught me to always ask "who benefits from this?".  I've found it a useful question to ask when trying to understand various human actions in different contexts.  It often revealed the mis-direction that was being done.


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## limr (Nov 14, 2013)

pgriz said:


> What?  Why?  Where?  When?  Who?
> 
> These are relevant questions.  The "How?" is usually less relevant.  But not totally irrelevant, as the phrase "The ends justify the means." warns us.  For to ignore the "how" is to take at face value whatever image we are looking at.    And while this may be fine in an artistic way, it also hides the reason of creation of the image from us.  This becomes a problem in propaganda, whether political, commercial, ideological, religious, or sectarian.  So while we should not be slaves at the altar of technical excellence, we should be aware of how images can be manipulated.
> 
> My mother, who survived a dictatorship, and then WWII as a refugee, taught me to *always ask "who benefits from this?"*.  I've found it a useful question to ask when trying to understand various human actions in different contexts.  It often revealed the mis-direction that was being done.



Funny, I learned something very similar in grad school, except it was phrased as, "Who paid for this data?"


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## sashbar (Nov 14, 2013)

limr said:


> I'm not convinced that the 'why' is conscious. History is cyclical. The impressionists rejected realism and painted dots. Henri Breton and the surrealists of the early 20th century rejected the rigid structure of Victorian literature and created free-flowing narratives that had no resolution, but you could still emotionally connect to. Art, literature, fashion...when they get saturated with one thing for long enough, eventually people get frisky and start kicking back and so the pendulum swings. All the slick techno music or hair bands of the 80s got smashed the first time "Smells Like Teen Spirit" played on the radio.
> 
> So are people tired of the same old shtick and looking for something new? Yes. Why? Dunno - human nature? And in a sense - perhaps not in these particular details, but certainly in spirit - rejecting technical perfection in the search for emotional connection and creative content is only 'new to them' because they don't realize it's been done before. (Whoever 'they' are...).



Good that you have mentioned impressionists. Photography was one of the main reasons why they abandoned the "technical perfection" of realists and started to work differently.  Technological progress was behind it, just as it is now. I agree with subconsious "why", but it is a different (complicated) topic, that is beyond my intelligence. So I will finish here by sending you the last Autumn leaf, fallen today from the tree in my backyard :


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## sashbar (Nov 14, 2013)

robbins.photo said:


> But here's what hit me recently - you know what, even with all of that Justin Bieber music still sucks.


I have heard this name several times recently. Never heard his songs, so can not comment.


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

sashbar said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > But here's what hit me recently - you know what, even with all of that Justin Bieber music still sucks.
> ...



Lol... do yourself a favor an in this case do not educate yourself.  The stuff is just awful.. lol


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

I barely know anything about Bieber's songs, but I am pretty sure that it's simplistic to the point of wrong to say "Bieber sucks, Holiday was awesome, and that _is just an objective fact_" which seems to be the implication here.

ETA: Judgements about the quality of art of any kind are meaningless outside the context of that art. Art exists within a society, be it pop music, photography, or something else. Running down a rathole of technical merits, which is the usual approach here, gets you in trouble almost immediately as counterexamples can get dragged out pretty much endlessly. Bieber connects with his surrounding culture in an extremely powerful way, and that has nothing to do with whether he can sing, or whether you like his music.


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## limr (Nov 14, 2013)

amolitor said:


> I barely know anything about Bieber's songs, but I am pretty sure that it's simplistic to the point of wrong to say "Bieber sucks, Holiday was awesome, and that _is just an objective fact_" which seems to be the implication here.



I thought the point was that real talent would be evident even with imperfect technology that degraded or interfered with some of the sound of Holiday's voice. In contrast, many of today's performers rely on the advanced technology to make their mediocre voices sound better.

Edit: I don't know if Bieber needs that technology to make his voice sound better because I can't stomach the thought of him much less the sound of the music, but perhaps it's more applicable to other performers who are popular these days. Don't ask me who they are though.


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

Bieber uses autotune, which is where that weird metallic twang comes from.

But everyone does, and it doesn't matter if you can really sing or not. If you're not using autotune, you sound "wrong" to contemporary pop music fans. It's a stylistic flourish at this point, so whether he "needs" it or not is irrelevant.  Billie Holiday has stylistic flourishes that her fans demanded too, you may rely on that! Mozart too. It's part of the nature of pop.


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

amolitor said:


> I barely know anything about Bieber's songs, but I am pretty sure that it's simplistic to the point of wrong to say "Bieber sucks, Holiday was awesome, and that _is just an objective fact_" which seems to be the implication here.
> 
> ETA: Judgements about the quality of art of any kind are meaningless outside the context of that art. Art exists within a society, be it pop music, photography, or something else. Running down a rathole of technical merits, which is the usual approach here, gets you in trouble almost immediately as counterexamples can get dragged out pretty much endlessly. Bieber connects with his surrounding culture in an extremely powerful way, and that has nothing to do with whether he can sing, or whether you like his music.



Wasn't implying anything of the sort.  I was stating it as fact.  Bieber does suck.  Holiday was awesome.  Ten years from now Bieber fans will be embarrased to admit they ever listened to his stuff - same with all the gimmicky boy bands that have come and gone before him.  Nobody is embarrased to admit they are a fan of Billie Holiday, they've never had to be - as for the rest, well the point still stands.

All the technical advantages in the universe will not substitute for a lack of real talent, nor will any amount of hair gel.  Real art lasts - it stands the test of time.


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

robbins.photo said:


> I was stating it as fact.  Bieber does suck.  Holiday was awesome.



Okie dokie.


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## kathyt (Nov 14, 2013)

I just want to shoot whatever I want, wherever I want, and whomever I want without having so many damn rules. Sometimes it will be great, and other times it won't. Shoot what makes you content. You don't always have to appeal to the masses. Sometimes I could care less what comes out of my camera, but the experience is my reward.


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## minicoop1985 (Nov 14, 2013)

You know, I've been attempting to capture certain emotions in photos lately. It's for a project to help people understand the complexity of bipolar disorder. I can write until my fingers fall off or talk until I turn blue (that would take a while-I talk a LOT), but really, I felt like words just couldn't convey the emotions as well as a well composed photo. I add a little caption to each to help the viewer understand what it is I' trying to get across, but all the photos I put in that project are about feel (or lack thereof). *WARNING SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION TIME* If you're interested, I know I'm newer here and newer to true photography (meaning not snapshots), there's a link to the blog in my signature. I would really appreciate folks taking a look not because I crave attention, but so I can spread understanding of what bipolar 2 is.

As for photography being more about the "why" than the "how," isn't that what it's always been about? The "how" is most interesting to those who want to recreate something in the photo, the "why" to the greater audience-I think?


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

kathythorson said:


> I just want to shoot whatever I want, wherever I want, and whomever I want without having so many damn rules. Sometimes it will be great, and other times it won't. Shoot what makes you content. You don't always have to appeal to the masses. Sometimes I could care less what comes out of my camera, but the experience is my reward.



Oh yes, that's getting printed out and posted on my wall.  WTG Kathy.


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

Derrel managed to like my post twice. I am so pleased! And a little surprised.


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## SCraig (Nov 14, 2013)

sashbar said:


> Scott, you reminded me of my old Uni teacher. She was The Queen of a Slide Rule and her nickname was Bloody Mary. She was a true Slide Rule virtuoso and we were hopeless. Her calculation speed was just jaw dropping, and we kept making mistakes all the time. Then one day suddenly ( literally within a week or so)  everyone got a calculator. And the slide ruler was dead. She was devastated, because as a teacher, without a slide ruler, let's be honest, she was quite poor. She even tried to convince us that a slide ruler was good for our brain, unlike that stupid electronic calculator that makes no mistakes. Predictably, poor Blody Mary was left alone with her Knowledge. Probably she thought we were a lazy generation, always looking for shortcuts, trying to do things with the minimum of effort.. Unlike us she was not excited by the fact that a calculator works million times faster than any slide ruler and never ever makes mistakes. Probably she would say that a cube root of 267549, calculated on a ruler, would have a different smell and color and ultimately is more human..



I still have a couple of slide rules somewhere.  I couldn't use one now if I had to because I was quick to embrace electronic calculators   The first engineering company I worked at had some old mechanical rotary calculators that would do simple math but the user had to figure out where the decimal point went.  Better than a slide rule but not by much.

I think it goes a bit deeper though.  Most of the old(er) guys here will remember taking things apart when they were a kid just to see what made them "Tick" (I still have parts of a Micky Mouse watch I took apart when I was 6).  Vacuum cleaners, clocks, anything mechanical was fair game if I could find a screwdriver and pliers.

Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think that kids don't do that now.  Want to know how a vacuum cleaner works?  Google it and use the knowledge that someone else gained.  Want to see the insides of a watch?  It's on the internet somewhere and you won't wreck a watch looking at it.  My point being that there is no urge to obtain knowledge for one's self any longer.  There is no urge to "Tinker" with things and see how they work and how to make them better.  Everything is "Canned" and already there for the reading.  They don't understand that wrecking the watch to see what made it work was the fun part.


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

SCraig said:


> sashbar said:
> 
> 
> > Scott, you reminded me of my old Uni teacher. She was The Queen of a Slide Rule and her nickname was Bloody Mary. She was a true Slide Rule virtuoso and we were hopeless. Her calculation speed was just jaw dropping, and we kept making mistakes all the time. Then one day suddenly ( literally within a week or so) everyone got a calculator. And the slide ruler was dead. She was devastated, because as a teacher, without a slide ruler, let's be honest, she was quite poor. She even tried to convince us that a slide ruler was good for our brain, unlike that stupid electronic calculator that makes no mistakes. Predictably, poor Blody Mary was left alone with her Knowledge. Probably she thought we were a lazy generation, always looking for shortcuts, trying to do things with the minimum of effort.. Unlike us she was not excited by the fact that a calculator works million times faster than any slide ruler and never ever makes mistakes. Probably she would say that a cube root of 267549, calculated on a ruler, would have a different smell and color and ultimately is more human..
> ...



Well I hope you'll forgive me and understand that this isn't an emotionally driven response but I'd have to say that's an over generalization.   I have a nephew that absolutely cannot resist tearing apart anything that has moving parts.  He constructed his first racing lawnmower just last year.  He is keenly interested in how things work and what makes things tick.  I don't think that's generational, I think it's more personal.  Me I'm more interested in getting things to work - so if I can google it and figure out a quick fix, yes, admittedly I will.


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## SCraig (Nov 14, 2013)

robbins.photo said:


> Well I hope you'll forgive me and understand that this isn't an emotionally driven response but I'd have to say that's an over generalization.   I have a nephew that absolutely cannot resist tearing apart anything that has moving parts.  He constructed his first racing lawnmower just last year.  He is keenly interested in how things work and what makes things tick.  I don't think that's generational, I think it's more personal.  Me I'm more interested in getting things to work - so if I can google it and figure out a quick fix, yes, admittedly I will.



Maybe it is an over-generalization on my part.  That's why I included the phrase "Maybe I'm wrong".  I do agree that it is personal as opposed to generational, however I still feel that there are FEWER people with that inclination today than there were a few decades ago.


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

SCraig said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > Well I hope you'll forgive me and understand that this isn't an emotionally driven response but I'd have to say that's an over generalization. I have a nephew that absolutely cannot resist tearing apart anything that has moving parts. He constructed his first racing lawnmower just last year. He is keenly interested in how things work and what makes things tick. I don't think that's generational, I think it's more personal. Me I'm more interested in getting things to work - so if I can google it and figure out a quick fix, yes, admittedly I will.
> ...



Well certainly it's on the decline, of course back in my dad and grandfathers day you didn't just throw stuff away and replace it, because it was cheaper to repair it in most cases.  Now in most cases that isn't true - for example, I can do a cetain level of repairs on LCD TV's, I do have the knowledge to make a lot of repairs to the TV's themselves.  However, there is no money to be made in it - by the time I pay for the parts and figure out the amount of time I spend working on the TV even if I charge a ridiculously low amount for the labor, as in I'd probably make more with my time picking up a part time gig at McDonalds, well it's actually cheaper for the person to buy a new TV with a warranty than it is for me to repair the old one in most cases.

Same is true for a lot of laptops - unless the repair is something very simple and straightfoward by the time you pay for the part and tally up the time it takes you to fix it, well odds are good a new laptop would cost you about the same or in many cases less than the repairs cost. 

So I don't think your completely off base here by any means, but I don't think it's so much a function of attitude but rather one of practicality.


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## The_Traveler (Nov 14, 2013)

BrightByNature said:


> Are we going to end up with nobody in this world who is capable of shooting a technically correct shot, yet have thousands of instagram images portraying the moments of somebody's lives?
> 
> Is the skill, the artform dying out? We still NEED people to know the skills and the technical know-how. For that's how some people make a living: providing us with all the perfect images you see in magazines etc.
> 
> I wish this generation wanted to know the hows and the whys.



Technically correct is really important for documentation but what has it got to do with art?


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

Most people who bemoan the loss of technical knowledge in photography are, it turns out, not very proficient at wet-plate themselves. This isn't because they are bad people, it's because the number of people who are good at wet-plate is very small.


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## rexbobcat (Nov 14, 2013)

I think disregarding technicalities is dangerous. I recently got into it with a local photographer who's just, well, to put it bluntly, a dime-a-dozen family photographer. She places people in the shade in public parks. 

Where I live, photographers are coddled by their peers so much it's depressing. There is almost no improvement from what I can tell, because nobody is willing to give meaningful critique, and when they do the photographer gets all defensive. That's what this woman did. A particular photo was of a family shot mid-day under a tree in a park. The entire background was overexposed and the subjects took up 30% of the photo. It was a bad combination. She was called out on it and she fell back on the "it's just my style" and "it's a representation of my art" arguments. Saying that photography and art should be about the moment more than the technicalities or vice versa is a dangerous assertion.


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## The_Traveler (Nov 14, 2013)

For most people I have met in photography, the absolute acme of the photographic art is the technique that they currently use and any change from that is a sign of degradation in societal norms and perhaps even a hint that the world will soon break apart and spin into the sun.


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## Derrel (Nov 14, 2013)

rexbobcat said:


> I think disregarding technicalities is dangerous. I recently got into it with a local photographer who's just, well, to put it bluntly, a dime-a-dozen family photographer. She places people in the shade in public parks.
> 
> Where I live, photographers are coddled by their peers so much it's depressing. There is almost no improvement from what I can tell, because nobody is willing to give meaningful critique, and when they do the photographer gets all defensive. That's what this woman did. A particular photo was of a family shot mid-day under a tree in a park. The entire background was overexposed and the subjects took up 30% of the photo. It was a bad combination. She was called out on it and she fell back on the "it's just my style" and "it's a representation of my art" arguments. Saying that photography and art should be about the moment more than the technicalities or vice versa is a dangerous assertion.



See also: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photographic-discussions/344008-buy-stove-open-rest


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

rexbobcat said:


> I think disregarding technicalities is dangerous. I recently got into it with a local photographer who's just, well, to put it bluntly, a dime-a-dozen family photographer. She places people in the shade in public parks.
> 
> Where I live, photographers are coddled by their peers so much it's depressing. There is almost no improvement from what I can tell, because nobody is willing to give meaningful critique, and when they do the photographer gets all defensive. That's what this woman did. A particular photo was of a family shot mid-day under a tree in a park. The entire background was overexposed and the subjects took up 30% of the photo. It was a bad combination. She was called out on it and she fell back on the "it's just my style" and "it's a representation of my art" arguments. Saying that photography and art should be about the moment more than the technicalities or vice versa is a dangerous assertion.



Weird, isn't it?  Sometimes you try to get people to think outside the box a little bit and maybe look at their own work through a slightly different prism - and sometimes it just doesn't turn out all that well.  I mean granted sometimes it's the approach or the wording or whatever, but I guess in the end the result is normally not what you intend at all.


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

There are technicalities, and then there are technicalities.

There are indeed technical details involved in: _Put the camera somewhere good, point it somewhere good, mash the shutter button._

These include things like 'place the family someplace other than under a tree'. I think that the technicalities that haven't got much to do with the fundamental three step process are dinosaurs, shortly to be consigned justly to history for most people. I don't see any around, however, any of the three fundamental steps outlined above. I do see ways they can be partially pushed into post, but ultimately, you gotta do 'em, or you don't get good pictures.


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## Derrel (Nov 14, 2013)

The_Traveler said:


> For most people I have met in photography, the absolute acme of the photographic art is the technique that they currently use and any change from that is a sign of degradation in societal norms and perhaps even a hint that the world will soon break apart and spin into the sun.



I figure that is why you so loudly and repeatedly "slam" the entire Instagram aesthetic...you just cannot accept the idea of Instagram photos being valid forms of photographic expression. I've read your blog posts condemning Hipstagram or Instagram filters and seen your devaluations of that here on TPF...you represent the "Ansel Adams" and the f.64 Group approach that slandered William Mortensen and the pictorialists so maliciously and mercilessly, condemning both *their work* and *their method*s sight-unseen, in one fell swoop. You know, almost exactly the way you, personally, rip on the *Instagram aesthetic* and demean both it and its practitioners, AND the value of the work they create...as if shooting for Instagram distribution will cause the Earth to break apart and spin into the sun...

So I would say that you are like most people in photography.Lew Lorton Photography | My opinions about Photographing the Homeless and Using Hipstagram-like Filters; negative


*My opinions about Photographing the Homeless and Using Hipstagram-like Filters; negative*


As you wrote there, "Perhaps that is why I have such strongly held beliefs about photography and the spirit in which it should be done. Combine that with a personal defensiveness and irritability when people take me for a fool and what results is the cranky judgmental person that I am."


You are , in effect, taking the  f.64 Group, the Ansel Adams-like stance that states that THEY are the sole arbiters of artistic validity, of photographic expression,and that THEIR OWN personal,favored ways of making photographs are the holy grail. You equate using entire approaches, sight-unseen, as "*negative*". So yeah, you've proved your point pretty tellingly.

50 Watts


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## minicoop1985 (Nov 14, 2013)

I'm not taking sides-I have respect for both Lew and Derrel's opinions-but I had to like that post for one reason and one reason alone (aside from the whole well reasoned argument thing)... 



> shooting for Instagram distribution will cause the Earth to break apart and spin into the sun...



This made me laugh WAY too much.


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

Derrel said:


> The_Traveler said:
> 
> 
> > For most people I have met in photography, the absolute acme of the photographic art is the technique that they currently use and any change from that is a sign of degradation in societal norms and perhaps even a hint that the world will soon break apart and spin into the sun.
> ...



Wow.. Derrel.  Dang.  Looks like you may be joining me for Christmas Dinner over here on the Group W bench.  Yikes.


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

Now, now, that's not quite what Lew is saying.

He might recoil from instagram effects, but he admits that -- in theory at least -- there's no reason an instagram filter cannot support or at any rate not interfere with a good picture. His beef is when you take a bad picture (let us table for the nonce what that might mean) and try to make it good with an instagram filter.

Mortenson got a raw deal, to be sure, but to be honest I don't think he was all that great  He seems to have married the worst of Victorian sentimentality to a sort of comic book LOOKIT THAT! sensibility in the service of, you know, I don't even know what. If I could make out what his point was, I'd probably like the stuff better, but so much of it seems to simply be freaky for the sake of freaky. Arbus went down the same road. At least she could fall back on the crutch of "but at least my freaks are real", but she's still kinda problematic.


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

amolitor said:


> Now, now, that's not quite what Lew is saying.
> 
> He might recoil from instagram effects, but he admits that -- in theory at least -- there's no reason an instagram filter cannot support or at any rate not interfere with a good picture. His beef is when you take a bad picture (let us table for the nonce what that might mean) and try to make it good with an instagram filter.



Rotfl.. so if Lew has a beef with taking an inferior picture, doing a quick and dirty edit to it like say, applying an instagram filter, then that's just fine and dandy and the birds are all on people's shoulders singing happy tunes.

Now if I try to make.. hmm.. pretty much the exact same point, albiet badly worded, about many of the bad pictures I see over on Flickr that are run through another filter to convert them from color to B&W - and that it doesn't take a bad image and make it a good one, what happens?  Well then it's just fine and dandy, all hunky dorey that I get villified for it - up to and including having Lew, The self appointed gaurdian of such things, declare me a non-person.

Hmm...  

Not really trying to open this can of worms again you understand, but the irony is just so amazingly over the top - ok well actually I think maybe irony should be replaced with another word, probably one starting with the letter H in this context.

Lol


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## The_Traveler (Nov 14, 2013)

minicoop1985 said:


> I'm not taking sides-I have respect for both Lew and Derrel's opinions-but I had to like that post for one reason and one reason alone (aside from the whole well reasoned argument thing)...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I have no idea what Derrel's opinion might be but mine is as it always is. I shoot and process the way I like. 
I don't think it's sensible to be angry at the world of photography if it changes; I will just go on shooting the way I like to.



amolitor said:


> He might recoil from instagram effects, but he admits that -- in theory at least -- there's no reason an instagram filter cannot support or at any rate not interfere with a good picture. His beef is when you take a bad picture (let us table for the nonce what that might mean) and try to make it good with an instagram filter.



Exactly. Processing should follow the spirit of the image and not take it over or stand instead of good content.
I have no beef with Instagram _per se_ except that it becomes the crutch for too many people.


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## rexbobcat (Nov 14, 2013)

People are always misinterpreting the argument against Instagram.

It's not Instagram itself that I hate. It's the mentality of the people that use it. 

Instagram does not make bad photos look better, but I know a lot of people who think otherwise. They think that the fact that they have 10,000 followers means that their photos are automatically elevated to the position of high art, regardless of the content of the photos. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the double DD's that just happen to be falling out of the photographer's shirt in 60% of all their photos.

It's not the aesthetic and conception of Instagram that I hate, it's the delusions  that a lot of users seem to have about how awesome their photos are.

(Plus, there is literally no way not to look silly trying to take a serious photo with an iPhone.)


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## rexbobcat (Nov 14, 2013)

robbins.photo said:


> Rotfl.. so if Lew has a beef with taking an inferior picture, doing a quick and dirty edit to it like say, applying an instagram filter, then that's just fine and dandy and the birds are all on people's shoulders singing happy tunes.
> 
> Now if I try to make.. hmm.. pretty much the exact same point, albiet badly worded, about many of the bad pictures I see over on Flickr that are run through another filter to convert them from color to B&W - and that it doesn't take a bad image and make it a good one, what happens?  Well then it's just fine and dandy, all hunky dorey that I get villified for it - up to and including having Lew, The self appointed gaurdian of such things, declare me a non-person.
> 
> ...



I think the word you're looking for is miscommunication.


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

rexbobcat said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > Rotfl.. so if Lew has a beef with taking an inferior picture, doing a quick and dirty edit to it like say, applying an instagram filter, then that's just fine and dandy and the birds are all on people's shoulders singing happy tunes.
> ...



Actually I think it may have been hypocrisy - I'll have to go back and check my notes.  But you are correct, miscommunication was spelled wrong.


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## Steve5D (Nov 14, 2013)

Why the Hell are you guys so damned concerned with what other people are doing?


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## Derrel (Nov 14, 2013)

The_Traveler said:
			
		

> I have no beef with Instagram _per se_ except that it becomes the crutch for too many people.






			
				The_Traveler said:
			
		

> Just trying to see how wide are the boundaries of your unthinking prejudice.



yeah...that's what you wrote when robbins.photo said "he" did not like black and white. Yeah...that was on the 11th of this month...

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photographic-discussions/344354-critiquing-judging-3.html

I was to quote you, Lew,"not allowing you to get by with this snide remark unchallenged."

We get it.


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

Derrel said:


> The_Traveler said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Looks like you might end up at my place for Christmas Derrel - so, Ham or Turkey?  Lol


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> Why the Hell are you guys so damned concerned with what other people are doing?



Ok granted Steve, as much as I hate to admit it you've got a very valid point.


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## robbins.photo (Nov 14, 2013)

Derrel said:


> Ham, OR turkey??? Whadda ya mean "*or*"...how about BOTH!!!!!!!!!! lol



Lol.. both it is.  Going to be one serious party over here on the Group W bench..


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## amolitor (Nov 14, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> Why the Hell are you guys so damned concerned with what other people are doing?



Why are you so interested in why we're so interested in what other people are doing?


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## bratkinson (Nov 15, 2013)

I just finished slogging through this entire thread. Now it's time for my 2-cents worth, hopefully without assailing some respondents choice of music, musicians, or where they post their fanatastic photos...

I still have my trusty $30 all metal high quality slide rule I was required to obtain for the college calculus and physics required for an engineering degree in the late 60s. I think I could still multiply 2 x 3 and get 6 as the answer with it. Back in those 'good old days', that $30 was a major investment for a student...probably more like $150 or so today. And those first electronic calculators? My big brother paid something like $150 in 1975 or so that did add/subract/divide/multiply only...not even square root or any trig functions! At those prices, one better know exactly HOW to get the answer to the problem...and use that tool until it could no longer function. I also had the misfortune of having a high school math teacher for 3 of the 4 years and he required everyone to show every step along the way to solve whatever problems he required us to solve. Today, highly intelligent calculators are completely FREE on students' smartphones that cost $5.00 with a 2 year plan. No need to show the instructor all the steps to get the answer...it's all on the smartphone.

What can be learned from all that? The HOW is no longer an issue. Just get the result quickly. The inaccurate-beyond-2 places slide rule has no place in todays world except as a museum piece. We couldn't have had much of a space program if it depended on slide rules. When I was in high school, it was important to me and my friends to know everything there was about a car, and how to tear down and rebuild the engine, transmission, differential, carburettor(s), dash board, and everything else if we wanted a 'good' car, or, at least, as good as our friends cars. Today, who cares? There's so much electronics that does everything in the car and everywhere else these days, understanding the HOW is less and less possible for an individual. 

And so it is with photography. In Ansel Adams day, one had to MASTER not only the exposure but the processing and printing as well to be considered a MASTER, with all appropriate honors bestowed upon them. Even being a 'professional photographer' inspired awe and wonder by those who had no clue of what the exposure triangle was or what hypo was or what 'magic' happened in a dark room. It took countless hours of practice to reach the 'proficiency' level. Those who took the time to actually LEARN HOW everything was done perhaps didn't become masters, but at least they knew how to get from A to B.

Today, it's all about computers. The ever-shrinking cost and size of computers has put incredible capabilities in the palms of our hands for next to no cost at all. For $5 and a 2 year contract, you can get a phone, a calculator/computer, a game toy with 5 million games on it, a mini-movie theater, and even a 40mp camera! And if it breaks, or a 'new improved' model comes out, toss that one and get the new one! 

As mentioned a couple of pages ago, society has become a throw-away society. Get it cheap, when it breaks, toss it. As a result, people are no longer inclined to think there is any 'value' in something that is so cheap and easy. How many teenagers these days take 'selfies' at McDonalds with their friends and immediately post it on the web...and then completely forget/disregard/don't care about the picture they just sent to the world? There's no percieved VALUE to the picture they just took! They got exactly what they wanted! An instant-gratification picture instantly shared with their 'friends', wherever they are! Was that picture perfectly sharp? Was it properly exposed? Appropriate DOF for the image? IT DOESN'T MATTER! THEY GOT THE PICTURE AND THAT'S ALL THEY WANT! WHO CARES THE LEAST ABOUT --HOW-- THEY GOT IT? They only care that they got the picture and sent it out immediately. Perhaps their 'value' to the picture is to somehow 'elevate' themselves among their web friends that they went to McDs today, and yesterday, and tomorrow, too...

For what it's worth, 40 years ago, my friends and family all showed to me a degree of 'awe' and 'respect' because I knew 'all about computers'. A computer back then started at $1 million and went up from there! Perhaps I once more reached that 'elite' status of having an expensive camera and expensive glass to go with it, and get some degree of 'awe' and 'respect' as a result. And yes, to me, 'absolute sharpness' and technical perfection in the camera and in post are my goals. But who else cares in the least? They get pictures they are more than happy with using nothing more than their FREE smartphone camera.


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## mmaria (Nov 15, 2013)

......


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## sashbar (Nov 15, 2013)

bratkinson said:


> For what it's worth, 40 years ago, my friends and family all showed to me a degree of 'awe' and 'respect' because I knew 'all about computers'. A computer back then started at $1 million and went up from there! Perhaps I once more reached that 'elite' status of having an expensive camera and expensive glass to go with it, and get some degree of 'awe' and 'respect' as a result. And yes, to me, 'absolute sharpness' and technical perfection in the camera and in post are my goals. But who else cares in the least? They get pictures they are more than happy with using nothing more than their FREE smartphone camera.



People have always been craving for some status, "awe" and "respect" or at least recognition, this is human nature and one of the most powerful motivators in life for everyone. And if someone satisfies this desire by buying an expensive camera and some lenses that cost him an arm and a leg, I have nothing against it. Really. If it works, if he feels better,fine. But it has nothing to do with photography.  
As for "absolute sharpness" - I prefer "detail". Because absolute sharpness is a technical parameter that is often meaningless to me. Detail is about the content. And sharpness and detail do not always go hand in hand, as shown by later FUJI cameras.


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## amolitor (Nov 15, 2013)

Technique has always been vanishing.

These days we have a certain attitude that if you don't understand the Holy Exposure Triangle, and perhaps how to use flash, or something of photoshop, or whatever, you're not serious. You're not connected to the work, you're just a dilettante. The technique that, somehow, informs the work and makes it better is lost on you.

150 years ago the same kinds of attitudes existed. They didn't care much about the exposure triangle, though. The techniques that connected you to the work, that made you not a dilettante, were things like the skill of flowing collodion across a glass plate. Exposure was, well, give it a minute or two, it'll be OK.

Computers followed much the same trend. If you didn't understand tubes and transistors, then you really wern't much of a computer person. How can you program the thing if you don't know how a half-adder works?! Later, you didn't really need to know about transistors, but f you didn't understand assembly language then you didn't understand how computers work. Then people stopped worrying so much about that, C programming was really the right level of abstraction to understand computers. These days it's about frameworks more than languages.

None of this means that people today are crappier than they were last year. Quite the contrary. Moving to higher levels of abstraction lets us focus on what's important. Certain minutiae may be an important part of how you and your friends relate to the work, but it's not how other people do. And that is OK. Not everyone has to use film to take a good picture, although for some people it is without question important.

I know a guy who didn't really find his voice until he started doing wet plate. The minutiae of that process are somehow important to how he makes a picture, even though, ultimately, the work is still about putting the camera in a good place, and pressing the shutter button at the right time.

This in no way precludes the possibility that another person cannot make superb work with a digital camera in Auto mode.


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## sashbar (Nov 15, 2013)

amolitor said:


> Technique has always been vanishing.
> 
> These days we have a certain attitude that if you don't understand the Holy Exposure Triangle, and perhaps how to use flash, or something of photoshop, or whatever, you're not serious. You're not connected to the work, you're just a dilettante. The technique that, somehow, informs the work and makes it better is lost on you.
> 
> ...



You can look at it from a completely different perspective. We are loosing our battle for control with progress, and "How" is exactly what is at stake. 

500 years ago people knew pretty well how things worked. You would not need to be a professional in the field to explain how a carrieage moves or how a sand watch shows time. 
These days we understand increasingly less about things that surround us, and  only professionals can explain coherently how a hadron collider, Tianhe -1A or even an iPhone work. 
In the not so distant future new more clever machines will be engineered, construsted and built by lesser machines. And nobody, including the professionals in the filed will be able to explain how exactly these machines work because it will not be a human design. Probably the moment when humans will not be able to answer the "How?" question any more, will be a turning point for our civilization, and it all will go down the slope.
Probably that is why a kid wants to open a box to look what is inside and how it works. It is the basic survival instinct. :shock:


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## The_Traveler (Nov 15, 2013)

amolitor said:


> None of this means that people today are crappier than they were last year. Quite the contrary. Moving to higher levels of abstraction lets us focus on what's important. Certain minutiae may be an important part of how you and your friends relate to the work, but it's not how other people do. And that is OK. Not everyone has to use film to take a good picture, although for some people it is without question important.
> 
> This in no way precludes the possibility that another person cannot make superb work with a digital camera in Auto mode.



I agree with this entirely as it pretty well sums up my spoken and unspoken thoughts.
If you use 'controls', you need to understand them; if you don't use them - and can still produce what art you want - good for you.


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## rexbobcat (Nov 15, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> Why the Hell are you guys so damned concerned with what other people are doing?



Because I have to deal with them on a daily basis and I can only take so many uninformed opinions before I want to crawl back into my shell and put on my crotchety old man mask.

Like the other day I had to photograph this girl for a college publication, and when I said I used to work for the paper she said "Oh, I love editorial photography! It's so EASY and fun!"

*****, don't ever speak words to me with your mouth hole again. (I didn't really say this but I sure took those photos quickly and sent her on her way, probably back to Candyland.)


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## robbins.photo (Nov 15, 2013)

sashbar said:


> amolitor said:
> 
> 
> > Technique has always been vanishing.
> ...



So humanity will eventually meet it's demise at the hands of machines built by machines.

HA!  Ridiculous.  Everybody knows that the zombies will get us long before that happens.. sheesh.. 

But I do actually disagree with you on one point, I think our civilization hit it's downfall point already.  The moment Barney the Dinosaur sued the San Diego Chicken, it was all over right then and there.


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## slackercruster (Nov 15, 2013)

Good rundown OP. I'll tell you what I hate that was reinvented. Fuji screwed around with their aperture rings and that focus by wire if garbage.


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## slackercruster (Nov 15, 2013)

BrightByNature said:


> Are we going to end up with nobody in this world who is capable of shooting a technically correct shot, yet have thousands of instagram images portraying the moments of somebody's lives?
> 
> Is the skill, the artform dying out? We still NEED people to know the skills and the technical know-how. For that's how some people make a living: providing us with all the perfect images you see in magazines etc.
> 
> I wish this generation wanted to know the hows and the whys.



No, don't think so. There is no shortage of perfect...perfectly boring pix all around.


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## slackercruster (Nov 15, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> Why the Hell are you guys so damned concerned with what other people are doing?



Photogs are always looking at what others are doing.


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## pgriz (Nov 15, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> Why the Hell are you guys so damned concerned with what other people are doing?



It's a human thing.  Fishermen in boats are checking out what the other fishermen in other boats are doing.  Mothers at preschool are checking out what the other mothers are doing.  Guys in cubicles are always looking over the partitions to see what the other people are doing.  There are some iconoclasts who claim not to care.  The rest keep on looking just to make sure they're not missing out on something interesting.


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## The_Traveler (Nov 15, 2013)

Steve5D should ask himself exactly that question.


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## Steve5D (Nov 15, 2013)

amolitor said:


> Steve5D said:
> 
> 
> > Why the Hell are you guys so damned concerned with what other people are doing?
> ...



Well, when someone's as interesting as you, it's difficult not to be...


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## amolitor (Nov 15, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> amolitor said:
> 
> 
> > Steve5D said:
> ...



I have no way to rebut this statement, it is SO OBVIOUSLY TRUE! I bow to your unassailable logic, and superior intellect!


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## Steve5D (Nov 15, 2013)

amolitor said:


> I bow to your unassailable logic, and superior intellect!



You're not the first, and it's unlikely you'll be the last...

:mrgreen:


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## robbins.photo (Nov 15, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> amolitor said:
> 
> 
> > I bow to your unassailable logic, and superior intellect!
> ...



Careful Steve, keep this up and you might wind up on the Group W bench with me and Derrel - lol.  Well, I guess I am fixing ham and turkey for Christmas so we should have plenty.


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