Our national attitude toward photographs can be compared to living entirely on fast food, and eating it while driving.
I’m narrowing the focus of Click! to subjects that are especially important to me, and I hope, to you.
One of my main areas of concentration in photography is encouraging people to put their photographs on display. This can be accomplished easily now with custom coffee table books, many variations on the traditional print, and through the use of video.
In spite of ready access to these wonderful and amazing opportunities, I find that most people leave their images on their camera. This behavior is something like living on nothing but fast food consumed while driving.
We have actually taken a step backward from the days of film. With film we had to get photographs printed in order to see what we had. Now, we sneak a peek at the screen on the camera to look at the image. Unless you have a relatively expensive camera (a couple thousand dollars or more) that screen is low resolution and does little to reveal much about the image. Even a professional camera has a tiny screen, and photographs are seldom at their best when they are tiny.
But wait! you might say. What about Picasa and Flickr, and all the other online galleries? I’ll deal with that category of display in future posts. Stay tuned.
Why do I care what you do, or do not do, with your photographs? I’ll start with my selfish reasons, and work my way up the list to more noble intentions.
- I charge for my services to help people put their photographs on display.
- It annoys me to see people passing their phone or point-and-shoot camera around for others to see. If you want to do that, at least buy an iPad.
- Parents often start a college fund while their children are still young. Parents buy life insurance for the benefit of their children. Yet, they don’t record the family’s experience during childhood using the resources at their fingertips. History is assumed to be more or less disposable. I think of this as a great loss for all concerned, and I want to be an advocate for the value of family history.
- This nation needs all the art it can get as a counterbalance to the visual junk that big advertisers foist on us. Individual moms and dads can contribute to art by creating it, appreciating it, and displaying it. I marvel at the quality of work of many people who would never call themselves photographers. People are much more capable of creating meaningful, worthy images than they give themselves credit for.
- We have lost our connection to the past, and this has been replaced with an exaggerated concern for the most recent tweet or Facebook post. We obsess on the perishable and the temporary. The sweetness of things that last is captured in photographs taken by professionals and amateurs alike. We would do well to savor that sweetness frequently and in a leisurely manner.
I’m looking for people who share these values. Thanks!
