"There's too many pictures!" Exclaimed a large angry woman at the CO-OP Gas Bar.
"There's just... too many pictures." She said once more, and then turned to smile for the camera an employee had just pulled out. The flash snapped, and the frown on her face returned as she began to wander about and chat with various customers and someone who was probably the gas bar owner.
This was the scene about two or three weeks ago while I was standing around in the new CO-OP Gas Bar handing out radio station bumper stickers and pestering customers to enter their name in a draw. That large angry woman was there to give a speech for the ribbon cutting of the new gas bar, so I think we can assume she was someone important.
I wish I would have asked her what exactly she meant by 'There's too many pictures." But I think I caught her drift. This is actually something I've thought quite a bit about too. The average person nowadays takes the majority of their pictures on a digital camera. I know when I got my first digital camera for a trip to the east coast I took more than 700 in a matter of ten days. That's 70 photos a day.
Compare that to a regular disposable camera or roll of film that would take like 24 pictures. When you have a tighter limit on your number of shots, you have to think a lot more about what pictures you would like take and be more conservative.
In general I'd venture to say that people were better amateur photographers twenty years ago than they are today.
I understand the desire to take a lot of pictures, it's something we all want to do, and probably have done at some point. Taking a picture has now become so common we've become somewhat jaded over it. If you can take 500 pictures why worry about getting that one photo 'just perfect'?
Not only that, but the slide-shows that friends and families put on for us now are soooooo long.
I'm just getting sentimental though. It really is easier to have a digital camera that you can upload pictures on the net with or email, and if you want copies you can print them yourself at home for cheap.
But there aren't lots of people who do that. At any rate there's more people who are hoarding their photos in a digital manner than there are those who are printing them and putting them in an album. I know a few people, one who reads this blog, who do that though, and I'd sooner sit down with an album any day than stand at a computer to look at pictures.
One thing that the trend towards digital photography will do though seal away a generation of photos on a hard drive. Which will take away the thrill of finding a cool picture on the street or in the trash. I'd really like you to check out this website to see what I mean.
"There's just... too many pictures." She said once more, and then turned to smile for the camera an employee had just pulled out. The flash snapped, and the frown on her face returned as she began to wander about and chat with various customers and someone who was probably the gas bar owner.
This was the scene about two or three weeks ago while I was standing around in the new CO-OP Gas Bar handing out radio station bumper stickers and pestering customers to enter their name in a draw. That large angry woman was there to give a speech for the ribbon cutting of the new gas bar, so I think we can assume she was someone important.
I wish I would have asked her what exactly she meant by 'There's too many pictures." But I think I caught her drift. This is actually something I've thought quite a bit about too. The average person nowadays takes the majority of their pictures on a digital camera. I know when I got my first digital camera for a trip to the east coast I took more than 700 in a matter of ten days. That's 70 photos a day.
Compare that to a regular disposable camera or roll of film that would take like 24 pictures. When you have a tighter limit on your number of shots, you have to think a lot more about what pictures you would like take and be more conservative.
In general I'd venture to say that people were better amateur photographers twenty years ago than they are today.
I understand the desire to take a lot of pictures, it's something we all want to do, and probably have done at some point. Taking a picture has now become so common we've become somewhat jaded over it. If you can take 500 pictures why worry about getting that one photo 'just perfect'?
Not only that, but the slide-shows that friends and families put on for us now are soooooo long.
I'm just getting sentimental though. It really is easier to have a digital camera that you can upload pictures on the net with or email, and if you want copies you can print them yourself at home for cheap.
But there aren't lots of people who do that. At any rate there's more people who are hoarding their photos in a digital manner than there are those who are printing them and putting them in an album. I know a few people, one who reads this blog, who do that though, and I'd sooner sit down with an album any day than stand at a computer to look at pictures.
One thing that the trend towards digital photography will do though seal away a generation of photos on a hard drive. Which will take away the thrill of finding a cool picture on the street or in the trash. I'd really like you to check out this website to see what I mean.
With photos like this
and this
I'm also concerned about the whole instant gratification that photos give you. I remember waiting excitedly for my photos to develop. I grew up in a small town so development took like a week or two. You'd take the roll into the Sears store, they'd mail it away, and back would come your photos.
The anticipation was equal to childlike glee before your birthday or Christmas.
This past weekend I was helping one of my various roommates babysit her nieces, and they started taking pictures with a digital camera and fighting over who got to see the photo first.
Oh well, I'm just living in the past. But here's one final point in favor of film cameras. With digital you can no longer get away with taking a picture of your butt with your friends camera.
The anticipation was equal to childlike glee before your birthday or Christmas.
This past weekend I was helping one of my various roommates babysit her nieces, and they started taking pictures with a digital camera and fighting over who got to see the photo first.
Oh well, I'm just living in the past. But here's one final point in favor of film cameras. With digital you can no longer get away with taking a picture of your butt with your friends camera.
Don't act like you haven't done it before.
5 comments:
Dear Jake,
I take a lot of pictures, In each of my DSLR's I have a 8 GB card, which is regularly fill with tasty RAW file goodness. I do agree that the average joe takes way too many pictures, I recently had a facebook contact who posted 14 albums of 60 photos each from their trip to Florida. I think that they may have spent more time taking pictures than actually doing things on their trip.
From a counter perspective, as a self taught semi-pro (haha) photographer, digital has allowed to teach myself proper photography (combined with lots of reading) at a very accelerated pace as compared to learning with film. Yes with film its a necessary to know how to take a proper exposure, but to take a GOOD digital photograph it is also necessary. Most point shoot cameras leave you with flash blasted poo poo. Digital memory is cheap so when shoot a concert for example I can snap away and even if one tenth of the photos are ok, at least I have my pick out of those rather than have 2 out of a 24 exposure roll turning. That kind of a different situation, as shooting in low light high movement situation without flash is literally a crapshoot. But I digress, that my jumbled view of the situation, great blog buddy!
Dave, I'm glad you commented! I know you're big in photography, and so as someone who takes photography far more serious, or at least knows more about it than the average joe, you'd have valuable input on the subject.
Lets say you were working for the magazine of your choice, taking the photos you wanted to take, which would you work with? Digital or Film?
Oh, and another thing:
An important point that I forgot to mention was regarding content. I don't think people are as good at recognizing something that is truly worth taking a picture of as they used to be. If you can take pictures of everything, you might gloss over that one special thing that's really worth taking a photo of. That's what I was trying to say about eh 200 photos versus 20 thing. With twenty you really have to consider if something worthwhile.
so true. i am one of those people with hardly any pictures at home. i didn't want them because they were messy. what a jackass! now i have to borrow them from every body and scan them. i blew it. and it is hard to play catch up.
the digital thing is sooooooo easy, but how many times is something actually printed on photo paper and stored? very rarely, if ever.
wah. pros and cons, for sure.
I keep various photo albums. I print all my digital pictures (worth printing) and if the digital version turned out not so great, but I really wanted to keep the picture anyway, I'll tweak it in photoshop before printing it.
What sucks about facebook is that there's usually a lot of cool pictures I want to print, but the resolution is so shitty they don't print out so well.
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