Digital technologies vs traditional photography

Over the last century human civilization has made huge advancements in technology. Technologies allowed humans to develop such processes as mass production, cured countless diseases, increased technologies, and of course gave us TiVo. In today’s world technology can allow us to just about anything we want, with computers we can chat with people on the other side of the world, surf, and immerse ourselves in digital/virtual worlds. While increasing digital technology is generally beneficial, there are some aspects of technology that I consider to be inferior to technologies of earlier decades. These include technologies such as digital cameras and consumer photo finishing software. Now before I go further, I must admit that I have a digital camera and find it so convenient and easy to use that I haven’t picked up an analog camera in years. The one aspect of digital cameras that I find inferior is the quality of pictures, or the level of artistic creativity that user must possess in order to obtain that perfect shot. Today just about anyone can use a digital camera, just point, shoot and delete the ones you don’t want. From there users can hop on a computer and run the picture thru photo editing software, to eliminate red-eye, stretch the image, and even insert other images into the picture with little to no sign of doctoring. While these new technologies have increased the casual use of photography, I believe that utilizing such technologies actually detract from the artistic quality of photos (or at least the ones that claim to be artistic), and instead I see the gap between art and replication to be widening. In past years, to obtain that perfect shot or picture, photographers had to incorporate personal creativity and artistry into designing the shot, and have a strong knowledge of which lens to use, and how light can play add or take away from a picture in order to be successful. Now we have technologies that can automatically alter a picture and fix any anomalies. While I do recognize that such technologies has actually opened up new artistic styles, I personally believe that using digital cameras is almost like cheating, and that the use of digital picture technologies does not classify them as true artists, just as people who only play Rock Band cannot be classified as real musicians. While there are always arguments for and against the use of digital technologies, the fact remains that the more photographers start to depend on digital technologies, allowing computer sub-routines to perform all the work, that they further distance themselves from their artistic capabilities, surrendering their own skills to new technologies.

This is my first blog, so bare with me. As I have been doing a lot of reading lately on visual culture, interpellation and context etc, I started applying this to many of my favorite shows. It wasn’t until I was interrupted during a new South Park episode with the question “what crap are you watching?” that I started to take note.

“How can you watch such vulgar racist crap?” my mother asked, to which I returned “what crap are you reffering to?” She started to explain that she was offended by many of the character representations, such as the AK47 toting Jesus, and cute woodland creatures. As I thought of a response, it came to me that maybe the representations in South Park are not racist, sexist or offensive. I explained that yes, maybe the producers are a little sick, twisted and perverse and that they purposely mean to infer such meanings in there work. I also told her that maybe the producers are actually masters of reflecting modern visual culture and have designed the show to enhancing the feelings of the viewers by engaging them, and forcing them to apply the values reflected in each portrayal. I explained that such values exhibited by each individual representations were actually meaningless in and of themselves, and that any negative values it may hold were simply her own personal values, beliefs and such reflecting back thru the image, and that any meaning she associated with it was totally her own. I also explained that I was trying to higher my sense of artistic development, by openly embracing the art hidden within modern culture.

While this could be considered a poor excuse to avoid letting her have the remote, and not watching American Idol, it still holds true. The meanings that we as individuals draw from different media forms are not completely influenced by the producers. Our past experiences, beliefs, values and other factors all come into to play, as each individual is directly responsible for creating the values they interpret. Either way it still worked, I got to watch my filth, and she got bored and made me a sandwich. In the words of Eric Cartman… “Sweeeet!”