December 15, 2011

I call Bullshit!

Music | Someone to Hurt by Client

At what point do you finally draw the line and say what you feel, not caring about how egomaniacal you come out looking at the other end. I'm tired of being polite and sucking up my true feelings of the direction photography has gone to. I know that technology has made the medium more accessible and I think that is a great thing, honestly, I do. I love that we can create an immediate image and call it our own, post it on the internet and have it judged by our peers and anyone else who can find it. What gets me is the Political Correct attitude that everything has worth, to the point that we should not suggest anything negative, because there in life, we are all winners... In my daughter's fencing class, there is a sign that says, In Battle, there is a winner and there is a loser. Sometimes life comes to that. There is a winner and there is a loser, there is a positive and a negative, there is good, there is bad... Pick a side baby, because we're gonna forget about political correctness for a moment...

Is it that we want to falsely believe that we can be anything we want, without working hard endless hours to work on a craft we want to succeed in. It used to be you needed to find a mentor willing to work with you and teach you methods and techniques to accomplish a task. But now, we expect to google upon a subject, read about the trials and tribulations of some dramatic writer who also has read thru endless websites on the internet and dabble at that same task we want to achieve? That seems to be the way to get to the milestones of our desires. Where are the sore muscles, banged up fingers, worn thru leather, hours of latenight caffeine stupors til the sunrises?

I hate the easy way out. I hate that there are "photographers" these days that only know what they have read about, and follow the same paths as everyone before them. I hate that techniques in photography now require a key stroke, a cursor and mouse. I hate that reality has gone by the way side and even 5 year old boys and girls has a softening feature done to their skin tones. At what point will we recognize that the portrait of ourselves is not us?

Wake the fuck up and say something...

5 comments:

Ethan said...

It is a double edge sword, truly.

I see the other side too, I see people who do in fact throw their heart and soul into their work, who do no flinch from real commentary/ feedback. As a buyer of photography, it is vexing that the lazy/untalented may be shooting with a $15k worth of equipment, and think that this equates to anything other than capture quality. If the shot is wanting, high res and low noise only make it that much more apparent.

Sioban Lombardi said...

amen brother. It's the same in painting. Take comfort n the fact that you are gifted, highly experienced, educated and dedicated and in the end, that does make a difference.

Anonymous said...

Amen sister. I remember years and years ago being at the top of my craft in paper folding and then someone alerted me to the Japanese and their thing known as origami and that they had being doing it since the dawn of paper. Damn - I thought to myself - gutted. All that work, blood (paper cuts), sweat and creativity and not once did I think of paper cranes - damn! I reached to my inner dust bin noting all the screwed up balls of missed attempts strewn about. Right there I discovered my hidden talent, my nirvana moment, the epiphany that became "dust bin screwed up paper ball art". The way my particular missiles had landed, was unique to me. The idea, the knowing that no-one else could have landed balls of paper with such indiscriminate precision and flare, in the same way I did. This was to be - my art and no-one else's inner paper folding technique or resources mattered. I think there's something in that for all of us don't you think Ted?

Anonymous said...

aka: "Welcome to the music biz!"

-jl

Fuelfed said...

Hey, aren't I an experienced master fresh out of my online college?

 
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