I think you are utterly wrong for the "most people" part. For most
people I would suggest that digital photography is about the snapshot.
I would suggest, particularly with the convergence of the tech with
smartphones and even their less complex siblings (even our little
Nokia 6300 has a camera), that most photos taken are snapshots.
I, in my head, as a "hobbyist" photographer, have a thing about "time
and place" that I thnk drives my efforts (I say "I think", because I
actually try *not* to think about it, but know it comes through in my
reactions to my own photos). Apart from some "types" of photo I take,
you could say my photos are all about the snapshot. That's me, but I
just say it in the knowledge that large portions of my photography are
merely crafted elaborations of most every one of the billions of
photos, snapshots, you'll find on MyTwitterFaceSpacebook, or being
"developed" at KMart from holidays and birthdays and such.
People won't want a Googlegraph of the Sydney Opera House they visited
on their hols, any more than they'd feel satisfied with a (likely
"better") image on a postcard. A Googlegraph won't give the
legs-cut-off piccie of themselves standing in front of the Eiffel
Tower. A Googlegraph of a delicious sunset from their balcony won't be
the same as the one they took themselves. A Googlegraph won't show
them and their BFF getting absolutely ratarsed at the local club on
their BFF's 18th birthday. A Googlegraph from every inch of the
planet will, in the terms of the "snapshots" that make the vast bulk
of photography, be no substitute for being there, and for holding onto
that memory in pixel form.
A Goooglegraph won't be their image. It won't be their memory. It
won't be their time and place, no matter how much or how many of us
hobbyist and professional photographers consider their snapshot
vacuous or technically imperfect or duplicatable.
That is not to say said Googlegraph won't become reality, and a useful
tool for image creation, but rather that I think you overestimate its
incursion into personal digital photography, and have not taken into
account why the vast majority of people take photos. We like to say,
sometimes, it's all about the image. It's an aphorism with more legs
than there are in most snapshots. But that's part of the "craft". For
the majority of photos in the world, the image is not all, tempered
much by its grasp at personal time and place...memory.
You sound cynical, Ken. Sometimes it sounds like you can't remember
why, outside of professionalism, you take photos (this is not an
insult, but a questioning statement of empathy for a feeling that I
get as a hobbyist, and myself look at too much - looking into the
abyss looking into me. :) ). At times it's easy to look at and justly
say about all processing and post-processing that "it's all about the
image". But it conflates our practical requirements into our emotional
and creative inspirations and motivations towards a conclusion that
artifice is or may eventually be better than being there. For most
people and most photographs and most photographers I do not think that
is the case. In simple terms, I think most people take photos to
capture their own time and place, and, not unrelated, because it gives
them, us, pleasure. It's fun.
A Googlegraph will be insufficient substitute for being there, and
taking your own.
In my opinion.
Cheers,
Marc
On Friday, July 30, 2010, Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> ...
> In a very few short years, an upcoming version of Photoshop will allow
> you to create an entire photograph right from your desk. Just Google
> Earth yourself to the location of your choice, identify the lighting
> conditions and season, toss in a few custom attributes and press the
> "OK" button. Up pops a fully rendered scene exactly as you want
> it--all without even using a camera. At that point the digital camera
> will be as obsolete for most people as a film camera is today. There
> are so many millions of photographs out there that Photoshop will have
> been able to determine exactness of every inch on earth and all you
> have to do is move your virtual tripod, frame and shoot.
>
> AG (my head hurts) Schnozz
--
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