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Photography technology has influenced what people consider a good picture
- ScaleneTriangle 5y agoThe example of a selfie is in fact, not a selfie.
- Panini_Jones 5y agoIt's a picture of people taking a selfie. I think that communicates what a selfie is better than an actual selfie.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoThe caption says, somewhat ambiguously, "Example of a selfie". That could mean "this image is an example of a selfie" (which is false). Alternatively it could mean "this image shows an example of a selfie being taken" (which is true).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mc32 5y agoSure but they are showing someone who we can presume completed taking a selfie. Though, arguably, the photographer we do not see, being further away would have taken a better (less distorted) picture, if the self photographer hadn’t hogged up the view. In any case, I’d be curious to have joerg colberg’s take on this. Looks like he touches upon it tangentially[1] but not full on. [1]https://cphmag.com/real-world/ https://cphmag.com/real-world/
- function_seven 5y agoHa. Now I want to see the photo of that one being taken. Something like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cmwov/_/c0tpyls/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cmwov/_/c0tpyls/ EDIT: If you don't want to wade through that thread, here's a single image strip of that OP descending into madness as he shows how he took the "k-1" photo: https://i.imgur.com/Z12CC.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Z12CC.jpg
- dheera 5y agoI frequently see people say online that they "took a selfie of" something else these days. This language really bothers me.
- mc32 5y agoI took a self-portrait of... It's people not thinking through what they are saying and rather relying on stock phrases to relay information.
- cstrahan 5y ago> relying on stock phrases to relay information You can see this in other common phrases. Take "miles per hour" for example. I've met plenty of people who can't figure out how long it would take to get from A to B at X mph. They'll deliberate over how they know from running on their treadmill that they run (on average) at 8 mph, and they recall that it usually takes them Y minutes to run Z miles, and then they factor in the diameter of their car's wheels (because surely a car with larger wheels gets there faster for the same mph vs a car with smaller wheels), and finally sprinkle in a bit of multiplication to arrive at their best guestimate. That is, plenty of people don't realize that "per" means "for each", and that it's not some singular word "milesperhour", but a phrase meaning "miles traveled for every hour spent travelling". Other fun phrases thrown around without understanding (or with similar words mistakenly swapped in): Miles per gallon. For all intensive purposes. Nip it in the butt. Bone apple tea.
- Spivak 5y agoMaybe, but it’s way more likely that they mean “I took a picture of something with myself in the frame.” A selfie can really be any picture where you’re holding the camera and in the frame. The subject of the photo can be something other than you. “I took a selfie with…” means that I and the other thing are the subjects. “I took a selfie of…” means that the other thing is the subject I’m just in the picture.
- dheera 5y agoNo, I very often see people say things like "I took a selfie of my dog" and only the dog is in the picture.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- poetaster 5y agoStatue selfies should become a genre ! I will contribute.
- majormajor 5y agoIt's right under the paragraph about the "plandid," and it seems to be a perfect example of that, though the caption makes it ambiguous re: intent.
- ZacharyPitts 5y agoMy most upvoted reddit comment ever was when I posted a "Sacagawea selfie"... by sticking my camera at the end of a statue's arm: https://i.imgur.com/UXRUx8q.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/UXRUx8q.jpeg
- brudgers 5y agoThat’s the point. You accept it as a picture of someone taking a selfie. Not just of someone taking a selfie but doing it competently. It’s how I am supposed to picture myself to make a good selfie…and also how selfies are cast as shallow to make them easy to dismiss. Even though Ansel Adams’ self portraits will hang on gallery walls as dearly priced artifacts.
- meowzero 5y agoAnother recent example of how "bad photography" inspired "good photos" is Juergen Teller's shoot with W magazine. https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/best-performances-portfolio-2021 https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/best-performances-portfoli... The photos are typical of Juergen's style. But his style has been evolving more into casual snapshot aesthetic, but in more ironic way.
- jbtbfkkfmfne 5y agoThe same thing happened in fashion. High fashion is always copying what the regular unfashionable people on the street are wearing, in the eternal search for authenticity. Which is why things like bubble jackets, sweat pants, crocs and dad sneakers evolved from being laughed at to being very fashionable.
- swiley 5y agoI must be out of touch, those aren’t fashionable and I don’t think most people in their 20s would think they are (sure they wear them all the time but that’s because of a rejection of fashion in favor of comfort.)
- jbtbfkkfmfne 5y ago> wear them all the time That's kind of what fashionable means. Oxford dict: Fashionable - characteristic of, influenced by, or representing a current popular style
- zokier 5y agofashionable, popular, trendy, and common all mean different things even if they are somewhat interlinked concepts. High fashion then stands even more apart from the rest. I kinda like this Cambridges definition[1] of fashionable more (even if isn't perfect) > wearing clothes, doing things, and going to places that are considered stylish There is clear difference of what is considered stylish and what is popular. Macmillian[2] has even more poignant definition available: > popular with rich and successful people, and often expensive Which I might disagree on specifics, but it still carries the thought over. Fashionable is not (necessarily, or even commonly) popular with the common people, but of some sort of elite. [1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fashionable#cacd-1 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fashiona... [2] https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/fashionable#fashionable__5 https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/fashi...
- aaronbrethorst 5y agoBut bromine, iodine, chlorine, and silver could not fix an even greater failing of early photographs, their impermanence Good pun.
- syncsynchalt 5y agoI have to guess a little at what you mean. My guess is the word "fix", having only been tangentially involved with photography are these the chemicals that we now call "fixer"?
- aaronbrethorst 5y agoFixer is a class of chemicals used in wet photography to reduce impermanent, light-sensitive silver ions to permanent metallic silver.
- seszett 5y agoThat is actually done by the developer. The fixer washes away the remaining unexposed silver ions that were not reduced to metallic silver by the developer.
- aaronbrethorst 5y agoAh, so it does. The fixer stabilises the image, removing the unexposed silver halide remaining on the photographic film or photographic paper, leaving behind the reduced metallic silver that forms the image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_fixer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_fixer
- twic 5y agoTalking about what good and bad means in photography always reminds me of Miroslav Tichý, who said "if you want to be famous, you must do something more badly than anybody in the entire world", and took terrible but strangely brilliant photos with homemade cameras: https://flashbak.com/photographs-by-the-perverted-flaneur-miroslav-tichy-361768/ https://flashbak.com/photographs-by-the-perverted-flaneur-mi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_Tich%C3%BD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_Tich%C3%BD
- nsxwolf 5y agoCurious, is "more badly" here an intentional joke? Or did he mean "want it badly" in the sense of really wanting something?
- gowld 5y agoIt's itentional. He starts with, "First of all, you have to have a bad camera".
- jablan 5y agoJust a rough translation of "Když chcete být slavní, musíte něco dělat tak blbě, že tak blbě to nikdo ve světě neudělá". "...you have to do something in such a silly manner, that nobody in the world did it so silly" or such.
- lmilcin 5y agoWell, I took a look, they are just bad photos to me. I could not find any redeeming quality.
- helloworld11 5y agoI'm curious, show an example of what you consider to be good photos, if you don't mind taking a moment.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- brudgers 5y agoFor whatever if anything it might be worth, I would recommend Beil’s book if you find the ideas in the article interesting. I mean the American Method is still running round in photographic circles as obsession with corner sharpness as a marker of self seriousness…and that’s where the book starts. If I had an unmet need, it is the entirety American focus of the book leaves me a bit blind to the bigger picture. What was it like, I wonder, in Japan? But then again, good books should raise new questions because new questions are the mark of learning. Beil’s book certainly feels like a potentially “important book” on US photographic history to me. YMMV.
- chefandy 5y agoI don't think this is a good title for the article. It probably generates more clicks than "how trends and technology influenced our perception photographs."
- JALTU 5y agoI'm no art historian, but from one point of view, good photography demonstrated qualities you'd find in good painting. Then the medium took on its own aesthetic with camera angles or color saturation of various films. Fast forward to today and between "vertical" compositions (screen orientation) and live photo (very short video) and let's face it, upvoting, our world is less about bad photos than it is about popular photos. From a collector's point of view, I'd think one would align with that more than, say, a contest winner's photo. And, an element of this has always been there, just not as amplified and dominant as it is in this social media era. @chefandy suggested a better title, and I'd agree. I'd suggest however that his/her title is too gentle. I'd say "How Mass Popularity and Tech Influenced Perception of Photography" because it speaks to the culturally aggregating effect of the Internet.
- dang 5y agoOk, we've changed the title above to use representative language from the article itself.
- chefandy 5y agoGreat, thanks.
- yawaworht1978 5y agoYes the craft of photography has gone mainstream with digital. Easier to use for the average person, with filters and effects, but doesn't make the average users professionals. Mobile phone images are the new throwaway polaroid. However, the professionals with digital equipment do some incredible things.
- ngokevin 5y agoThe business of photography is more marketing than craft these days. Even professional photography is a commodity. There are some people that stretch the art of photography, but they are more digital artists than photographers. They take a lot of the creativity into the post-processing and Photoshop stage. Most professional photography these days is just right-place-right-time and tweaking in Lightroom.
- falcrist 5y agoIt's worth noting that even quite famous photographers from before the digital era would spend a LOT of time doing post-processing in the darkroom. I'm thinking specifically of Ansel Adams, who famously said “You don't take a photograph, you make it.” Of course darkroom tools had to be supplemented with special techniques and filters applied at the time of exposure. Digital photography is orders of magnitude easier.
- ngokevin 5y agoGreat quote. I meant to imply that post-processing is a plus. A good percentage of people still think post-processing is cheating (i.e., #nofilter) but it's where the creativity actually comes into play. The hard thing about digital photography is that it's easier, but that means you have to be that much better to stand out, because it's easier for everyone.
- cryptoz 5y agoRelated: Do iPhone or Android cameras have a smoothing filter that is default-on and that cannot be turned off? Been wondering about this.
- cratermoon 5y agoAll camera phones do heavy processing of the captured pixels. This is known as "computational photography". The camera software is the only thing that keeps the average camera phone picture in the realm of "that's a picture of the thing I meant to take a picture of".
- sudosysgen 5y agoYes, as noise removal.
- knolan 5y agoYes, but some phones give you raw files and some apps can bypass the additional processing. iOS https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211965 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211965 Android https://www.androidbeat.com/2018/10/pixel-3-how-shoot-raw-dng-photos/ https://www.androidbeat.com/2018/10/pixel-3-how-shoot-raw-dn... Alternative iOS camera app: https://halide.cam/ https://halide.cam/
- zimpenfish 5y agoAs a bonus, Halide also gives you proper control over which lens is being used in 2x mode - the iOS camera will flip between the 1x lens and 2x lens for 2x depending on focal distance - makes a right mess of things if you've got an extension lens screwed into 2x...
- sudosysgen 5y agoApple ProRAW is not a real raw file and will include a lot of processing.
- nbzso 5y agoPhotography as art was slightly popular in the age when regular people had crappy cameras and had to learn how to create a picture. In the process people learned to appreciate good composition and artistic interpretation of true professionals. With advancements in digital photography and recently computational exposure all of this is gone. Over-saturation, Hyper contrast, HDRI corrections are the norm. People like things that are easy to understand and reproduce. The next level of madness is GAS. There are thousands of "photographers" who are actually Technographers. Who are part of some "group" or brand tribe. And the taste of the tribe defines success. The people who are learning composition, exposure or development are minority. And in this age of popularity contest photography is measured in likes, so there is no place for good photography in a classical sense. People have phones with AI and everybody is an "artist'. So be it. But some of us don't care. Some of us shoot film for experience and challenge. Some of us read Ansel Adams books and try to create meaningful work. Some of us know who is Bresson, Robert Capa, and countless other masters. https://www.magnumphotos.com/shop/photographers/ https://www.magnumphotos.com/shop/photographers/ And this is not bad thing. Let people like what they can comprehend.
- prox 5y agoThe hobby / professional camera field has to my knowledge always been divided between technologists and artists. One group who doubled down on the technical side, and one group coming from an artistic background. The Venn Diagram of where the two meet is not that big.
- nbzso 5y agoMay be I cannot express my thoughts clearly. Sorry, my English is not fluent and I don't always have enough time to polish my expose. For me "Technographers" are not people who are on the technical side of photography. Real technical side is important from craftsmanship perspective, but only as a tool with photography goal. "Tecnographers" are people who care only for cameras and photographic gear in general. They follow marketing gurus and camera reviews and participate in brand defined groups. They are obsessed with "latest tech" and "showing off" in "Photography competitions" or "Group Meetings". They are the most effective customers for manufacturers and in general are miles away from photography as an artistic expression or even craftsmanship.
- amelius 5y agoWorse, advertising photography has influenced what people consider good looking people.
- cm2012 5y agoMovies and TV have a much bigger impact on this than ads. Ads in general are worse at changing opinions than most people think. They are better at getting people to act on what they already agree with.
- kazinator 5y ago> “We have a situation today,” Beil says, “in which our smartphone cameras are producing pictures according to the criteria of software designers, who have made a lot of egregious assumptions about the tonality of skin color.” Making any such assumption, of any quality, is egregious; it has no place in the camera application, other than as some opt-in configuration in the category of special effects.
- patrickthebold 5y agoI believe you have to make assumptions. AFAIK the data being picked up by the sensor can't map 1 to 1 with a display screen or a jpg or a print. So there has to be some mapping involved. Some cameras will give a RAW file, but developing a raw file isn't really a special effect.
- kazinator 5y agoI think there is a difference between applying some gamma curve or removing noise or whatever, versus somewhat understanding the image semantics and going after fixing skin tones.
- psychomugs 5y agoWim Wenders had some pretty strong words about phone photography, claiming it's no longer photography but a new medium itself [1]. "The less you have, the more creative you have to become." In On Photography, Susan Sontag argued that photography, which itself took a while to become considered an art form, gradually began to absolve painting of its duty to represent 'reality.' I can see 'phonetography' doing the same: dedicated photojournalists with dedicated cameras are losing ground to amateurs with just a phone and social media account. Painting didn't die and neither will photography, but it's definitely going through some sort of midlife existential crisis. I can see it doing the equivalent of buying a vintage roadster as a senior citizen, i.e. return to its youthful state (film and mechanical/chemical processes) and explore its own unturned stones. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ezzpuOqkX4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ezzpuOqkX4
- hyperbovine 5y ago> I can see it doing the equivalent of buying a vintage roadster as a senior citizen Funny you should put it this way, because it’s the same crowd buying both: wealthy old guys. Some time around the 1990s, Canon and Nikon made the fateful decision that photography would become stupid expensive and accessible only to those with money to burn. Don’t get me wrong, modern DSLRs and AF lenses are amazing feats of engineering and manufacturing, but the end result has been that “serious” photographers spend upwards of $10k on a nice body and not that much glass. You reap what you sow. All of the energy and excitement about taking pictures now surrounds phones. The idea of dropping $thousands on a “proper” DSLR setup probably seems laughable to most millennials and gen Z.
- jjeaff 5y agoI think anyone, even millennials and gen z, that gets serious about photography will quickly start to find the deficiencies of their phone camera. Sure, there is a lot you can do with a phone. Even some stuff you can't do well with a dedicated camera. But everyone who really gets into the craft starts to see that they can't quite get the shot they want I'm the lighting they want with a single, one size fits all device.
- aimor 5y agoSomething I've notice the past few years is how annoying it is to look at small highly compressed images. You can go to http://news.google.com http://news.google.com and look at the thumbnails to get an idea of what I mean. Part of it is that pictures for digital consumption are taken with the belief that they'll be viewed at high resolution, and part of it is that the images are heavily compressed. It's not just that the detail is gone, but it's replaced with the vague hint of something. Sometimes I feel like I'm looking at GAN generated imagery because my brain is telling me there's something there, but I can't make out what it is.
- gorgoiler 5y agoIf you are disheartened by your photography then constrain yourself to people only. Once you have learned how to talk to your subjects, to get real emotion out of them, then you’ll never look back. Break through that say-cheese barrier and make eye contact. Get people to really look at you and trust you, know when they are ready, and get them to show you how they feel. I used to pat myself on the back for artsy seashell misty forest autumn leaf postcard stuff. In a world of hyper technical gear none of that is exceptional any more. The composition and lighting of people and their faces is all.
- feketegy 5y agoEverybody can press the shutter button, far fewer press that button with intent.
- totetsu 5y agoI recently started making photographic images with pinhole lenses exposing directly to photo paper. It certainly changed what I pursued as 'good' photograph. To even think about composition, texture, tone, subject you first have to get past the difficulty, and ease of making mistakes in the technical process. It certainly gave me great respect for people who make art photography in the pre-digital era. A large part of my motivation for trying this was looking at all everyone (myself included) snapping away all day every day making photos .. for what? .. It was hard to not just see them as habitual Trojan metadata carriers. ( here is one of the earlier works I actually scanned and inverted. https://mega.nz/file/1RhWwRTZ#q7jD9rbC2kph5VmX9q1Zv0ju-035HBfnKJEeK0R2ztw https://mega.nz/file/1RhWwRTZ#q7jD9rbC2kph5VmX9q1Zv0ju-035HB... )