You are the problem point of view: “When you leave everything to the crowd, where everything is democratized, when everything is determined by the number of clicks, you are by definition undermining the seriousness of the artistic endeavor…There is no evidence that we are on the verge of a great new glittering cultural age, there is evidence that we may well be on the verge of a new dark age in cultural terms … where the creative world is destroyed and where all we have is cacophony and self opinion, where we have a crisis of democratized culture.” – Andrew Keen from forthcoming film PressPausePlay.
Versus
You are the future point of view: “Now, we’re a series of editors. We all recycle, clip and cut, remix and upload. We can make images do anything. All we need is an eye, a brain, a camera, a phone, a laptop, a scanner, a point of view…We’re making more than ever, because our resources are limitless and the possibilities endless … We want to give this work a new status…Things will be different from here on …” -curators of group photography show From Here On. Arles, France
The above two opposing points of view are from this article in The Guardian by photography writer Sean O’Hagan. As far as I’m concerned, this is a non-debate. Let’s get real – it’s all the future. And you are are a part of it. The world… is NOT determined by a series of clicks. Nor does new work get a new status by simply being created. There is still merit, and there are still gatekeepers. It’s just that there are more exciting viewpoints than before AND that the keys to the gates are held by a new, different, larger and emerging cross section of the population.
And most importantly….
The future of photography –as has always been with the future of art– is cumulative, not partitive. Just like Warhol didn’t undo Monet, and Mapplethorpe did not undo Cartier-Bresson, we will retain the vision of the photographic masters who have preceded us. And we will reconcile those works with your work and my work and what’s hanging at the ICP, and the Met and MOMA, and Gagosian, and that other gallery you’ve never heard of, and Google Street View, 3-legged cats with cameras on their necks, and webcams.
The past merges with the present to make the future. And because of all that, the photographic future looks pretty damn interesting.
Interesting point of view.
There are a lot of things that can be done once you have the ability to take virtually free images that could never have happened without a military budget in the past.
For example, take a look at the composite virtual focus images I and others put together up on flickr…
http://www.flickr.com/search/?ss=2&w=all&q=virtual+focus+composite&m=text
You can take a bunch of images with the normal almost infinite depth of field, from slightly different vantage points, and combine them into virtual focus, giving short depths of field on objects as far as a few blocks away. You don’t have to have 10,000 pound, 6 foot diameter lens, you just have to move the camera through the area it would occupy.
I hope to build my own portable array of cheap still cameras to allow me to capture people and non-still life, but we use what we have, and have fun doing it.
There are a lot of other things that can be done, that I can’t even imagine, the opportunities laid before us are awesome. The only problem is choosing what to play with and pursue.
–Mike–
“3-legged cats with cameras on their necks” = LOL
I think this is the most exciting time to be alive in the last 100 years. Things are changing – and being created – at such a rapid pace, the possibilities really are endless today. And I am so excited about what is to come (in the future) for us photographers.
But it’s all about sharing – and being involved in the conversation. You do an amazing job with this, Chase! Hope you are well!