# *NEWS* Cameraphones are killing the art! =O



## rexbobcat (Dec 18, 2013)

The death of photography: are camera phones destroying an artform? | Art and design | The Guardian


Those danged youths with their text machines and their internet boxes.


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## ronlane (Dec 18, 2013)

Is this the 3rd or 4th time this year that photography has died? My boss is about to quit letting me off to attend it's funeral(s), lol


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## ShootRaw (Dec 18, 2013)

Do not fret..As camera phones get better,so do Dslr's...Besides it is the Photographer that makes great pics...


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## robbins.photo (Dec 18, 2013)

Wow.. really?  I mean the poor horse is so dead already, do we really need to drag it back out for yet another beating?


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## rexbobcat (Dec 18, 2013)

robbins.photo said:


> Wow.. really?  I mean the poor horse is so dead already, do we really need to drag it back out for yet another beating?



Yes. You're not a real adult until you become jaded and cynical.


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## amolitor (Dec 18, 2013)

There's no doubt that our relationship to pictures is changing, has changed, radically.

This is the important thing. The fact that we take pictures with this widget rather than that widget is irrelevant, except to makers of that widget and this widget. The fact that some tiny profession is getting blown up is again irrelevant, except to the people in that profession. The large social change in how we take, consume, and relate to pictures is what's interesting and important.

Pictures are now disposable, ephemeral, temporary. We relate to them as we relate to A New Thing, we glance at a picture, and then we want to see a new picture, another picture.

We used to view pictures as permanent, a vehicle for nostalgia, something to be preserved (possibly just jumbled into a shoebox) but some part of life frozen in amber forever.

It's a radical change. It's interesting. It might have some sort of long term cultural impact, but I dunno what that might be.


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## robbins.photo (Dec 18, 2013)

rexbobcat said:


> robbins.photo said:
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> > Wow.. really? I mean the poor horse is so dead already, do we really need to drag it back out for yet another beating?
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Seriously, how many times have we run this exact same topic into the ground?  Other than generating more clicks for this ridiculous doom and gloom bs article/blog post, what does it serve?


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## rexbobcat (Dec 18, 2013)

robbins.photo said:


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Mostly I just posted the article, because it's the kind of "gloom and doom" that I like to read and discuss...But really it's just so I can say "Oh look, another doomsday article." It's the end times!

You know...you don't HAVE to click on the thread...Seriously...


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## robbins.photo (Dec 18, 2013)

rexbobcat said:


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It serves the blowhard that regurgitated this poorly researched hogwash, and that's about it.  I can't even say the blowhard that wrote it, because frankly this exact same silliness has been written and rewritten and propogated over and over and over again even those it's totally false.  Even 10 minutes worth of market research blows every assertion made by articles like this one out of the water.  Yet for some bizarre reason they keep getting linked here over and over and over again for discussion.  Just mind boggling really.

I mean if you weren't a regular here I'd get it if you'd missed the .. well 47-50 discussions we've had on this exact same topic already this month.  But seriously?  Well whatever purpose your attempting to serve with this, honestly I don't get it.  But I'll let you go on with whatever this is - I'm sure Derrel will be more than happy to completley debunk this idiocy yet again when he gets a free minute or two.
</SPAN>


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## amolitor (Dec 18, 2013)

It's interesting stuff. We're in the middle of (perhaps at the end of) a radical change in the way photography fits into society. It's just one aspect of the overal digitalization of affluent western society, but it's something of a microcosm.

Very few people seem to have much of a grasp of what's going on, they get stuck on "OH NOZE DSLRZ ARE GOING TO DIE!" like anyone even cares about that, and miss the the bigger picture entirely. Absolutely nobody at all seems to have a credible story for what it all means and what the endgame is. Whatever it is, being one of those exponential growth deals it is not sustainable, so, more change is due.


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## rexbobcat (Dec 18, 2013)

robbins.photo said:


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OMG INTERNET RAGE GRAAHAHDFHASKFNSAGIASBGRE

If this offends you so deeply...just don't...respond....

I, personally, can see where the article is coming from, but I also disagree with it. I'm not looking for a discussion per se. I just wanted to post a rather pompous article, and others can feel free to give their opinion...or not...

No need to fly into "I'VE HAVE ENOUGH" mode. That doesn't help anymore than posting this article apparently doesn't help.


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## amolitor (Dec 18, 2013)

The article isn't as wrong as all that.

All you need to do it post a picture on TPF for critique to get a sense of how much people _actually look at_ a picture these days. And TPF is people who are pretty serious about photography. The general population is being trained to glance at a photograph and to understand it entirely as another instance of a picture they've seen lots of times.

Oh look, it's Sandy and Alan at.. some party yesterday.
Oh look, it's an Ansel Adams style picture of a waterfall.
Oh look, it's _insert archetype_ _insert content_ _insert date_ and surely that's all there is?

This is why people can take a terrible landscape, render it in high contrast b&w, and get OMG IT'S AWESOME!! replies. This is why when someone posts something that doesn't look like something there's a million copies of on flickr it gets panned. This is why people always want to correct your white balance for you. It's because we look at pictures not as themselves, but as a very thin veneer of differences applied to a bunch of stuff we're already seen. We look at pictures quickly, we apprehend them trivially, and we move on.

That's a problem for people who are trying to make art, or timeless pictures, or important pictures, or even pictures of important things.

It's not all digital's fault, but digital ain't helping.


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## Derrel (Dec 18, 2013)

amolitor seems to be making a lot of good points here. Really big,important, critical points about the way western society now looks at pictures. But it's not really as much the camera-phone or smartphone that's the vehicle--it's social media AND also the "free and easy" picture taking that digital cameras have made possible. This sea change has been upwelling for years and years, and only now are we high enough to see what's happened.


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## runnah (Dec 18, 2013)

Meh it's not all doom and gloom. Just as the VHS generation has brought us amazing filmmakers, the digital era has brought us wonderful photographers. Granted there is a lot more chaff mixed in with the wheat, it's still a good thing.


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## amolitor (Dec 18, 2013)

Making a good movie is still amazingly hard work.


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## Newtricks (Dec 18, 2013)

robbins.photo said:


> do we really need to drag it back out for yet another beating?



It's all fun and games until someone gets beat, then it's just fun.


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## Newtricks (Dec 18, 2013)

amolitor said:


> There's no doubt that our relationship to pictures is changing, has changed, radically... We used to view pictures as permanent, a vehicle for nostalgia, something to be preserved (possibly just jumbled into a shoebox) but some part of life frozen in amber forever...



Is this no longer true of the print?


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## amolitor (Dec 18, 2013)

Well, the print is an interesting case, isn't it?

I consider it an open question whether:

1) the world of photography is bifurcating into digital versus print, which we treat completely differently
or
2) the way we treat digital pictures is leaking over into how we treat the print

Either or both is possible, or some mixture, or something else entirely. I think that a print will always have a _little_ more gravitas because of its physicality. Will we tend to treat it as just a slightly more solid picture, to be glanced at and tossed aside like any other picture? Will we treat it as a completely different thing, imbued with the solidity, permanence, moment-frozen-in-amber-ness that it's had for the last 100 years? Dunno!

They say people are actually printing more than ever before, and I am guessing that this includes the now ubiquitous photo book.


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## runnah (Dec 18, 2013)

amolitor said:


> Making a good movie is still amazingly hard work.



So is taking good photos. It's all about the barrier to entry. Getting rid of the cost of film and the cost of processing opened the doors for a lot of people.


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## terri (Dec 18, 2013)

runnah said:


> amolitor said:
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> > Making a good movie is still amazingly hard work.
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It's also opened the doors to a lot of plonk.    That in itself is hardly new, but the overwhelming volume of it made possible by digital and social media has led to the trivialization of photography as an art form.   I think that's the point.


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## Designer (Dec 18, 2013)

Most people can't tell the difference, so they assume that any photograph is the same as any other.  

i.e.: "Why should I purchase an expensive camera when I've already got a camera right here?"


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## photoshooterOTW (Dec 18, 2013)

rexbobcat said:


> The death of photography: are camera phones destroying an artform? | Art and design | The Guardian
> 
> 
> Those danged youths with their text machines and their internet boxes.



I'm one of those "danged youth"  and I'm not really sure how I feel about this article. IMO, photography isn't dying... its just diverged, where less people are staying to the original art.  People in the world, unconsciously, can see the difference between an SLR photo, because those who use an SLR, are pretty much guaranteed to know abit more of composition, and how to take a better photo. As long as this people "see" this- people will be interested in doing it themselves...so no it is not dying...but in today's world the only reason people stick with the phones is cause of convenience, the effort you must put in and the cash. I just got into this, and I still tackle these problems- I can't carry my DSLR around (school ex), sometimes don't have the time to "practice" and I'm gonna have to wait a while for a respectable lens. It's daunting...and then Voila! I have this iphone which saves me all the trouble- like cmon! it has a 8 mp camera... that's not too bad..but people don't know about the horrible lenses etc. (due to companies "overlooking" it) I went online and did my research- but because taking photos that are better in quality than point and shoots and cellphones, better in flexibility, and better to express what I want, is more important and interesting. You can't get everything and this is an example. Just in today's BUSY BUSY BUSY world, they choose one way (and I think the wrong one)

P.S apologies for this rant, but I fail to see it dying.


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## minicoop1985 (Dec 18, 2013)

photoshooterOTW said:


> rexbobcat said:
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> > The death of photography: are camera phones destroying an artform? | Art and design | The Guardian
> ...



Somewhat off topic, but jesus christ I just browsed your Flickr. If you can do what I see in your Flickr at 15, imagine what you'll do at 30. Most impressive.

I find it ironic that as the world gets further into the digital age, it drives me more and more to film. To beat the dead horse some more, are cellphones killing photography? No. There's ALWAYS been 10 quadrillion more snapshotty photos than what we consider PHOTO photos. Cellphones are exactly the same as everything else. I'm sure some people wrote in to their local papers or almanacs or something that the Kodak Petite was killing photography. Or that roll film was killing photography. Or that photography was killing art. Or that painting on canvas was ruining cave paintings. So this horse isn't just dead, it was eaten by neanderthals and rediscovered by archaeologists after 250,000 years. No offense to OP (I speak fluent sarcasm too), all offense at whoever wrote the article.


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## Derrel (Dec 18, 2013)

The death of photography: are camera phones destroying an artform? | Art and design | The Guardian

"Hey, you! Get off of my lawn!"


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## minicoop1985 (Dec 19, 2013)

Derrel said:


> The death of photography: are camera phones destroying an artform? | Art and design | The Guardian
> 
> "Hey, you! Get off of my lawn!"



"Photographers are getting destroyed by the rise of iPhones. The  photographers who used to make £1,000 for a weekend taking wedding  pictures are the ones facing the squeeze. Increasingly we don't need  photographers &#8211; we can do just as well ourselves."

:roll: I respect the man's credentials, but I don't think ANYONE thinks they're a professional photographer with an iPhone. We all know it's the Galaxy S4 that all the pros are using today.


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## IByte (Dec 19, 2013)

minicoop1985 said:


> "Photographers are getting destroyed by the rise of iPhones. The  photographers who used to make £1,000 for a weekend taking wedding  pictures are the ones facing the squeeze. Increasingly we don't need  photographers &ndash; we can do just as well ourselves."
> 
> :roll: I respect the man's credentials, but I don't think ANYONE thinks they're a professional photographer with an iPhone. We all know it's the Galaxy S4 that all the pros are using today.



Nope the Nokia 41 MP cam phone is what the big boys use lol.


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## minicoop1985 (Dec 19, 2013)

OH NOES, I'M BEHIND! I CAN NO LONGER BE CONSIDERED A PROFESSIONAL! MUST UPGRADE! MEGAPIXELS ARE THE BIGGEST FACTOR IN PHOTOGRAPHY!


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## Newtricks (Dec 19, 2013)

Serious phonographers use a rig like this...

Google Image Result for http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/17/2010/08/340x_diy-iphone-smartphone-tripod-connector.jpg


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## Derrel (Dec 19, 2013)

amolitor mentioned how difficult it was to make a movie. My kid and his friends have made "movies" which they have uploaded to their own YouTube channels. A few of them are actually interesting. THey've shot them with my iPhone, or with a tablet one of the kids owns. I told my son about my childhood, with the old key-wind Bell&Howell regular-8mm movie camera I had in sixth grade. My friend Mike B. and I made a one-reel 8mm movie one weekend day, including a slow-motion, 72 fps "jump off of a stairs" shot which was the highlight of the movie. We edited and spliced the film together into its final form. We watched it a couple times, and showed it to our moms. That was basically the ENTIRE LIFESPAN of that movie. It was a lot of work to make and edit, and it took about 10 days for the developing turn-around, and as I recall, two days to edit and splice.

Contrast the above with the effort needed to shoot a 3-minute film using an iPhone. Contrast the screening in the living room for 8 people vs YouTube distribution. The world and our tools are no longer stuck in 1950's technology of key-wind regular-8mm movies. Same for digital still images.


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## robbins.photo (Dec 19, 2013)

Derrel said:


> amolitor mentioned how difficult it was to make a movie. My kid and his friends have made "movies" which they have uploaded to their own YouTube channels. A few of them are actually interesting. THey've shot them with my iPhone, or with a tablet one of the kids owns. I told my son about my childhood, with the old key-wind Bell&Howell regular-8mm movie camera I had in sixth grade. My friend Mike B. and I made a one-reel 8mm movie one weekend day, including a slow-motion, 72 fps "jump off of a stairs" shot which was the highlight of the movie. We edited and spliced the film together into its final form. We watched it a couple times, and showed it to our moms. That was basically the ENTIRE LIFESPAN of that movie. It was a lot of work to make and edit, and it took about 10 days for the developing turn-around, and as I recall, two days to edit and splice.



Aha! So it's your kids that are killing photography. Great. Thanks Derrel. Way to go.. 

rotflmao



> Contrast the above with the effort needed to shoot a 3-minute film using an iPhone. Contrast the screening in the living room for 8 people vs YouTube distribution. The world and our tools are no longer stuck in 1950's technology of key-wind regular-8mm movies. Same for digital still images.



I prefer the youtube model - vastly prefer it. Having been held hostage by so many godawful slide shoes that would have had to improve drasticallyto be almost as interesting as watching paint dry, believe</SPAN> me, I'll take YouTube any day of the week and 3 times on Sunday. Then when they say "Did you see my video on you tube" I can honestly say "Yes I did!" without bothering to mention I bailed on it 5 seconds in.. lol


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