Image by Mark Matthews @markmimage
Seems that a new guerrilla campaign by Olympus in Australia is talking shit about the “rubbish” photos from your camera phone.
“If you’re camera also sends text messages, that will explain why your photos are rubbish.”
Plaques in select Aussie cities bearing the above slogan have been pasted to the street and other urban environs, with the url GetARealCamera.com linking to Olympus. Personally, the message bugs me, but it’s pretty damn clever — made me look twice and type in the url. …
[thx @MarkMImage for the tip & sending in that image!]
btw the site (getacrapcamera.com) is down…
Ok – iPhone binned! Olympus, here I come!! Ha..ha… don’t think so….! LOL
In spanish there is a proverb to explain that, “No es la flecha sino el indio” something like “It’s not the arrow but the Indian”. I mean if you want to capture a moment you just need a camera (the one with you) and a lot of talent. If what you neen is quality go for state of the art equipment.
I know its a ridiculous statement by Olympus but surely it will (and has) got people to start talking about Olympus? which in this case I would say has been successful. Still rather dodgey point of view but if it was to get people to start thinking cameras I would say well played by them.
“The medium is the message”
McCluhan made that statement decades ago but it is becoming more relevant than ever. New technology is just an extension of what came before. The content that fills the new technology is usually the same as the old content that existed previously. If a camera-phone is an example, the camera-phone might be new technology but the content that fills it is the same as the content that existed before. The verbal cellular conversations are the same as the verbal corded telephone conversations. The digital snapshots taken are the same as film snapshots from a point-n-shoot. The text messages created are the same as greeting cards, notes passed in class, or postings on physical bulletin boards etc. The new technology of the camera-phone may appear to create or be filled with new content too, but all of it really is the same as the old content that existed before the new technology. New technology just extends what came before. It creates MORE of it.
The main thing that new technology can do is change the figure/ground relationship. If people previously could only talk on a phone in their home because it was corded but now can talk anywhere because it is cellular, then the ground has shifted from inside the person’s home to outside the home. The change in ground can effect the message of the content created or contained in the new technology. For example, if a person could only take a limited number of snapshots on a film camera then he might be more selective as to what is being photograph. But if the same person can take an unlimited number of digital images then the ground has changed and there is no reason to be as selective as with film. The freedom from selectivity that comes with a change in ground allows the person to photograph every dog he meets, every puddle and crack in the pavement, and every cup of starbucks coffee he drinks.
The Olympus ad campaign is playing off of McCluhan’s “the medium is the message.” It is pointing out that the figure/ground relationship changes between a dedicated still camera and something like a camera pohne. The change in ground leads many people to take worse photographs and the extension created by the new technology allows them to take more than ever before.