Comments (1) The Great Debate
This weekend I had the pleasure of spending an evening with husband and wife photographers Nigal Perry and Melanie Dunea. Both accomplished and skilled artists.
Our conversation meandered through various ins-and-outs of the photographic industry, landing on one important debate: is the internet and the pervasiveness of camera phones lowering the standards and will this new breed of photo-makers erode or degrade the professional sphere?
You can’t walk the street of any major city without being overrun by trigger-happy snap-shooters. Their captions flood every corner of the internet and often emerge as stock. Newswires and editors lured in by nominal fees push their sup-par photographs before the eyes of the consuming public.
Is it eating away at professional assignments? Is it filling a gap in which professionals never really wanted to play? Or, worst of all, is it damaging the publics ability to distinguish good photographs from bad?
Throughout this debate I can’t hep but return to one important truth: like many industries, photography is fed by advertising. Advertising is aspirational. Period. Aspirational photography requires a level of skill and thought that will never be supplied by the snap-shooter. They may get lucky now and again, but in my opinion there will always be a market for someone with an exceptional mastery of their craft.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the state of the industry…
(Check out the work of Nigal Perry and Melanie Dunea )In that same evening I gave my dear friend Georgette Farkas a gift of a photograph I had recently made. Her rave review inspired me to share it with you here.
Themocracy