What has the consequences been since everyone has access to either a digital camera or a smartphone with up to 200 MP sensors? Snapshits were easy to identify in the 80s because they were often shitty point and shoot, or Polaroids, but what gear does the snapshitter use now other than smartphones? Has the ubiquity of photography destroyed whatever strange, new artform was budding?
It has phenomenologically desensitized people to photography and visual imagery in general.
>>4522209>noooooo you cant take photos casually everyday its a high art form you wouldnt understand i hate normies reeeeeeeeeeelol what a loser
>>4522209That album is such overrated pretentious crap. I bet most people on /mu/ now are too new to even know what it is.
>>4522217Both can be true anon.There was once a time where driving was seen as an upper-class privilege, and even renting a car or being lucky enough to chauffeur was a big deal. That isn't to say that greater access to car-transportation was a bad thing, but it certainly made it less noteworthy. If I were to weigh in, it would be a resounding yes that cameras being everywhere has deminished the value of photos. That's fine. When it was novel or difficult it had merit. I don't need my holiday pictures or car show snapshits to be le art, I just want them to look nice.
>>4522209The perspective that an art form get destroyed because it gets more accessible is defended solely by people who don't practice it. Art is about practice. I don't give a shit that "anyone could do it" because the only life I experience is mine. This board is dead because it's overrun with miserable people that came into photography with the hope to prove they're unique and special through their production. For them it's a big issue that everyone has a camera, because it raises the level of work they need to put in to feel unique compared to 70 years ago where just taking a photo made you an outlier. They don't realize being unique and special is just a contemporary social incentive. 70 years ago, they would have simply followed the social incentive of the time, not gone out of their way to practice alone a clunky and expensive hobby which was barely considered an art form. Because their mindset doesn't provide them with any motivation to actually practice photography, they default to the easiest, second most important social incentive: BUY BRAND BUY BRAND BUY BRAND BUY BRAND.Today like 70 years ago, the actual photographers are doing photography for themselves, because they truly enjoy the process. To them, posters stating photography has been destroyed are nothing but laughing stock.
>>4522219The:literal,only,singular,lone,reasonit's a problem is if you base your worth upon other people's opinions or attention, like a whore
semen stains the mountain tops
>>4522230>To them, posters stating photography has been destroyed are nothing but laughing stock.actually i see such posts as boring spam
>>4522230This, so much this! Photograph for you, for your enjoyment and fuck all else. If the world likes that, fine. If it doesn't, so what, you have enjoyed it and that is enough.
>>4522230>the actual photographers are doing photography for themselvesNo, this is what coping hobbyists tell themselves. Most artists actually want their art to be seen and published. This has always been the case. "Art for arts sake" is total amateur meme. Anybody that's actually serious about their chosen discipline wants to do it in a professional capacity and get noticed for it. The problem with that is that it puts a condition on yourself. If you don't manage to get seen you're a failure (which is true), a fact that is psychologically untenable for most people. Much easier to hide behind the shield of "I'm doing it for myself", that way no matter how shitty your photos are or how unsuccessful you are, there's never anyone or anything that can make you feel bad about it.
>>4522358> The problem with that is that it puts a condition on yourself.More than that, it actually kills the motivation to practice by shifting its source from genuine enjoyment of the expressive mean to expectation of recognition from the public. What you are describing is the perfect recipe to coerce yourself in either doing nothing, or doing commercial art meant for enjoyment by the masses.> If you don't manage to get seen you're a failure (which is true), a fact that is psychologically untenable for most people.If I stick posters with my photos all over town I will get seen, yet I'm sure you wouldn't consider that a success. So what do you mean by seen? Do you mean "generating engagement on social networks"? No, I don't think you're a failure if you fail at that. A lot of great artist are only seen in specialized communities precisely because they are master that take taste to enjoy. Most importantly, you should not aim for engagement on the internet, because it will make your art shitty. The mass likes shit. Do you mean "seen in the same place and context master of the art form are seen", like in national geographics, magnum, or national museums? I agree that it's something to be proud of, but saying you're a failure of you didn't make it there is just retarded. It's a meaningless objective and a mindset that will make you life a sad one.> Much easier to hide behind the shield of "I'm doing it for myself"Tell me, between the person continually fails to hit any metric of success but continues for the love of the game, and the person who's stopped practicing or sharing because they didn't hit whatever metric of success they had set, who is hiding?> that way no matter how shitty your photos are or how unsuccessful you are, there's never anyone or anything that can make you feel bad about itThe belief that feeling bad is a redeeming quality is the mark of losers.
>>4522363>>4522358Forgot obligatory martin parr rules for emerging photographers
>>4522358What an empty and soulless way to think about art. You must live a very sad life.
>>4522358Two tribes control english language art publishing and they have godawful taste that has been described as demonic at the worst and ignorant of aesthetics and using art as an extension of word game postmodern pseudo-philosophy and status signaling at the best. Not giving a fuck about major publishers is increasingly normal now. Jews and american WASPs have genuinely bad taste in visual art. They have money, but just look at the blocky dogshit architecture in israel and all across the states. They have no taste. For years anglos and francs questioned if there was someone worse at the visual arts than the german. The answer has become abundantly clear. Our hebrew and american brothers must stick to math, law, medicine, jazz and klezmer, for everyones sake. If there is an explanation it lies in script. The german is bad at art and produces visually offensive clunky shit because of fraktur and print. The anglo, franc, and arab are good at art because of cursive. The asians are ok at art because of hanwen/kanji (but japan makes uglier shit than china). The american is godawful at art because of their complete lack of penmanship. The hebrew is bad at art because of blockletter hebrew, the only language that is almost as ugly as american handwriting. Unless you actually want to be another mark cohen, joel witkin, or andre serrano then absolutely care and go join the ugly club.
>>4522358This must be some of the dumbest shit I've ever read on this page, and that is counting in /b/ since 2006.Do what brings you joy. Fuck all else. We all die in the end, I'd rather die fulfilled and happy. You don't get there chasing others acknowledgment. ... Oh, you're just trolling. Nevermind!
>>4522209Better quality amateur nudes are a plus!
I don't have strong feelings about everyone having a camera in their pocket other than how it seemingly destroyed the market for mid-range budget cameras, because the target audience for those now just shoots with their phone.>>4522218>overratedfor sure, but I still enjoy it
Looking back it was amazing just how much attention people got for slightly above average "artistic" looking snapshits on social media, meaning anyone who had a system camera and knowledge of the exposure triangle.>Black and white photo of rocks and leaves with some bokeh.>140k likesand so on. It may be for the better that this environment ceased to exist so that actually interesting photos may become more appreciated.
>>4522404>Do what brings you joy. Fuck all else. We all die in the end, I'd rather die fulfilled and happy.The point is that you shouldn't feel happy and fulfilled being a loser. Your goal should be excellence in everything. Otherwise you are no different than a woman, LGBT, or black person who wants credit just for their sexual identity.
>>4526340And who decides what is 'excellence'? Midwits and normies? Learn to think for yourself.
>>4526340>noooo you should NOT be happy doing things you like if other people don't think your output is le great artWithout a doubt you are the loser here
>>4526340External validation is foid tier. Reminder that someone once tried to correct Michelangelo as he sculpted. He grabbed the chisel and some bits of marble and pretended to change something, dropping the bits to make it look like he chiseled. Then the other guy agreed it then looked as it should even though he changed nothing.
this seems the best place for this gripe.I was shooting a scout court of honor for a family friend, and at the end they wanted group pictures of the eagle and the family. I hate my strobes set up, umbrellas and everything, tripod, and started shooting using my remote from a few feet back so I could look at everyone and direct them to look above the camera and not at the camera. One of the ladies behind me just saying shit like "it's just a black screen, is your camera even working, just move and let us use our phones".during the banquet part of the meal, I took the opportunity to get them uploaded to the slides presentation. the lady who was screaming in my ear during the shoot came up to me later and was like, "are you a professional photographer? can I hire you?" I told her no.
>>4525588>actually interesting photos may become more appreciated.can you give an example of where is this happening? nice double dubs btw.
>>4526628I was the black screen and I confirm when op said no everyone clapped
>>4526709don't tell me you leave on your live view
>>4522209People were already saying that photo was dead because it was too easy in 1890.People who defend this point of view are absolute morons. Photo is easy, bland and generic because you make it easy, bland and generic. You use a digital camera and post your digital photos to Instagram (or keep it forever on your drive). You expect to feel life you're special and different but you're just doing what everyone does. Worse, you have the delusion of thinking if you were living a 100 years ago you would be a trend setter because you'd be doing photography when nobody was. You would not. You'd be doing something popular and generic like you are today. In 2026 the possibilities to make your photos stand out are literally endless and arguably cheaper than they ever were. You could try film. You could try creative lenses and filters. You could buy a special or constraining camera. You could print with alternative processes. You could meet art enthusiasts at a local art fair and expose/sell there so you're not just a bootch of pixel in an infinite scroll.But it's easier to rely on the digital camera to do everything for you and post in on the internet like everyone else. Easy is fine. Not everything has to be le art, the point is to have fun. But people deliberately choosing the automatic, easy, popular way and complaining everyone also does this are just retards. It's so sad they account for the majority of the board nowadays.
>>4526340Even cANON got to dunk on you. Sad.
>>4526340Have you seen what "people" like? That's not excellence. Excellence is shit like helluva boss and rick and morty now. Taste is dead. It died with modern "art". The one and only thing hitler was right about.
>>4526868100 years ago, "good photography" was literally anything that was properly exposed, in focus, level, and not a family portrait because most people only used their very very expensive photography equipment for family portraits. The "art" was 12 extremely rich jobless children. Ansel Adams traveled around doing nothing to hang out with a society of marxist intellectuals ffs.50 years ago it was 12 extremely rich, jobless sons of business moguls playing around with MF and LF film and wasting 100 rolls of B&W 35mm a day, talking each other up and claiming their amateurish shots of gas stations were art because they used expensive film and an even more expensive printing process. Most people only got to use 35mm then if they were wealthy. Film was still more expensive to use than it is today. And there wasn't internet help. So those few rich kids stood out.Today "good photography" is mostly jobless rich kids who can travel to inaccessible shitholes or photograph inaccessible celebrities.It's never actually changed it's just that right now a certified Art Expert isn't telling us what the consensus on the best photography is and making up a horseshit philosophy to justify it.
>>4526883tldr the average person is absolutely as good at this as ansel adams ever was and thousands of total retards can be and are the next garry winogrand or stephen shorethey weren't good because of their photography, but because of their connections and contemporaries, and this is why photography has never been taken seriously
>>4526884Using their phones? You think the average person can make a print as good as Adams?
>>4526886The sad part is no, not with their phones. Gear matters forever. But the average person given a modern "real" camera can easily learn to take a photo as good as adams and have their canon pixma shit out twenty copies. Millions have.What made adams special was the limited technology he worked with, how he stood out at the time, and what was then novel political messaging, not purely the actual content. That's why photography is a middlebrow art. So, if someone put in the work to make their phones output unusually good for the limited tech, that would actually score them some "good photographer" points.In high art, gear, politics, and other people don't necessarily factor in, it can stand on its own for all time. In low art, it's just slop. In photography it's not really a purely intellectual poetic pursuit. It's a contest to see who can be the most topical activist with the most connections shooting the least accessible subjects in the least accessible way. You can literally buy your way into being a better photographer if you shoot topical pro-thirdie activism from a helicopter with a phaseone and show up that sucker down there with a canon. Who is also shown up by the guy with the leica, just because he used a leica. Countless people have their names published right now because yes, they used a leica, that's fucking it. That, and the fact they contacted leica, pleaded, met someone from leica in person, were likable to them, and portrayed an area as poorer than it is which made the gallery patrons wet. Many such cases.This is either depressing or tips for success
>>4526887Eh. I mean mirrorless cameras are basically glorified smartphones you cant call people with at this point so yeah. Just put the camera in P mode and let them rip. I still think Adams editing style/quality would be hard to achieve for the average person. It isn't too difficult to learn C1/LR, but some of the more technical things that make a print get to the "master darkroom printer" level is still fairly difficult to achieve without some experience with the software. The actual printing is much easier now.I don't think it's useful or beneficial to give up or concede art photography to the class of people/photographers you describe. You are giving them exactly what they want. Spreading hopelessness and despair is playing perfectly into their hand.They may have a hold on art photography to a certain extent but giving it up entirely just feels like a cop out or excuse to never try and take it back. Despair is the enemy. Don't let them win. Do your best and come up with something smart, creative, beautiful, meaningful to show the world and if you(and lots of other people) do it well enough we may be able to push the scales in a better direction. Don't underestimate your local art scene and make the highest quality physical prints you can!
Photography isnt artIts simply documentation
>>4526891A gorillion people on flickr have in fact learned how to do this on digital. It's still hard to do as a 4x5 enlargement. The gear just can't be separated from the photo for the same reason a cool pic taken with an actual camera is more significant than an identical image generated with AI. And doing it as a 4x5 enlargement still won't hit the same ever again, because ansel adams was an environmental activist that joined an art movement, and he was the only one promoting photos like these as much as he was.>gear>novelty>topic>public relations>institutional connectionsHopelessness and despair was already there. You just need to open your eyes to it. If anyone here got into photography expecting to be an equal to good painters with just skill, lol sorry. Photography is a social game as much as it is an art.>Don't underestimate your local art scene and make the highest quality physical prints you can!A significant segment of young up and coming approved-good photographers are actually doing this, increasingly with 8x10, and it's full of the usual topical shit. Photography is inherently journalistic so it always will be. Pure art is a passing curiosity, like "cool, but if it were painting..."
>>4526893The camera is just a tool you can use to create visual media. Photography can 100% be art.>>4526895Sad to see you've given up. Hopefully you don't spread your despair to many other people.
>>4526893if you have to still make it look cool it's an art, even if it isn't the highest artif it was just journalism you could take a dogshit tilted blurry photo with the wrong colors and it would still be newsworthy if it was about the thing
>>4526883>>4526884>>4526887>>4526895>Photo a 100 years ago was just getting the exposure right and level the camera.is what digital users say, because it's all they have to do on their device to create a forgettable digital file that will never become an actual object. But 100 years ago you couldn't do that. You had to try a little bit to go from camera to enlarged image. But that's not part of photography according to digital shooters. >Anyone is just as good as Ansel Adams nowadays.lmao. ok. >...if they were to use the same gear and techniqueYeah because everyone knows how to use a large format camera, to develop and to print. It's not skill. Anyone can do it.>Photo is actually about being rich and knowing peopleYeah as opposed to painting where you become famous by mesmerizing everyone with objective talent. It's only in photography that rich people with connections succeed.>Network and opportunity is more effective than actual talent, hard work, and meaning, that's depressingI mean yes, but then what? Cry about it? Become a fraud yourself? It's time to grow up and realize that what matters is what you do not what most people think of your work. >Photography is political and that's a bad thingthat's litteraly all the fucking arts. I suppose in your opinion music is also bad because it's often political? Accusing any art to be political like it's a bad thing is stupid, but accusing photography as a media to be more tied to politics and therefore worse is just insanely retarded. Art was and always will be political. >Photos would be better if they were paintingsSays you ?What are you doing here if you hate photography so much? Why don't you do some non-political painting if that's so much superior? It would be one thing to look down on photography as a painter, but why is everyone on this website having a full blown inferiority complex that compels them to repeat ad nauseam that photography is an inferior dead art, yet stay here?
