In a world that’s becoming increasingly dominated by the presence of technology and automation, as well as an ever growing uptake in social media, photography hasn’t been spared the effects of such generational changes. In fact, it’s easy to argue that photography has been one of the professions most affected by societal changes involving how we deal with one another, as well as what emphasis we place on the skills of others around us.
One only needs to look at the sheer number of amateur photographers taking up work that was once afforded to only those with the highest quality equipment, while at the same time, the sheer volume of photographs has grown exponentially. Whereas once upon a time in the late 90’s the film photography industry was measured in the vicinity of 80 billion photos, the prominence of smart phones and more affordable digital cameras has seen that number become impossible to establish – the closest estimate would be based on the amount of photos shared online, which is always going to be significantly less than the actual amount of photos taken. Last year this figure was estimated as 2-3 trillion – to put that into perspective, it’s roughly the same number of photos for the entire film photography industry – ever!
However, with such an abundance of photos continually released into the public domain, the question remains: what value are people ascribing to photos? By and large, this is a question that is not for you or I – the professional photographers in this world are as talented as ever before, able to continually produce truly stunning work. To a lesser extent, the question is also one that is not necessarily best addressed by amateur photographers, customers, or photography enthusiasts.
Instead, the question should be considered by the public masses, where the trend has evolved into a practice where photos are taken of anything – from selfies to meals, and everything else in between. There is certainly nothing wrong about people wanting to take photos of things that have meaning to them, however, the relationship that the general public share with their photographs is something that has shifted with technology.
Whereas a photograph was once a prized consideration of a moment, the transition towards a ‘shoot, snap and store’ view regarding photography means that people now take photos at any moment with little regard for their actual value, as well as less emphasis on actually remembering the moment. Rather, an evolution has shifted the focus towards the ‘vanity’ element of the moment, or a desire to be seen as having done or experienced something by way of recognition from friends online.
Ultimately, what it means is that not only are people taking an excessive amount of photos, they are not spending a proportional volume of time reviewing and reflecting upon them – and when people do eventually look over said photos, naturally their value isn’t always like that of a memory, more so a placeholder.
While we can’t expect the general public to have the same degree of appreciation towards taking photos that a photographer might, it goes without saying that technology has played a part in redefining the consumer industry and all its related concepts – for many of the general public it might seem to be for the ‘better’, but for the purists out there it’s certainly for the worse.
