[HN Gopher] Why I stopped taking photographs almost altogether
___________________________________________________________________
Why I stopped taking photographs almost altogether
Author : akolbe
Score : 14 points
Date : 2023-08-16 11:00 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| btach wrote:
| Tldr: Because there already exist many photographs of what I
| photograph that are of good quality, and time seems to be better
| spent obtaining such photographs from others' collection than
| photographing them directly.
|
| This gets me thinking about the issue of doing something for the
| satisfaction of the creative process vs the satisfaction of the
| practicality of the end result.
| idopmstuff wrote:
| It's always weird to me when everyone at a fireworks show on the
| Fourth of July has their phones out taking video. There are a
| gazillion videos of better fireworks shows taken with better
| video equipment. Why do you need a phone video of this one?
|
| If you're taking a short clip to post to social media, I can
| understand that, but these people who hold their phones up and
| watch the show through the screen for the entire duration... why?
| mcv wrote:
| I usually prefer my own crappy amateur photos over other
| people's professional ones.
|
| Not specifically of fireworks, but I really like the photo I
| just made of the Jungfrau while the Eiger and Monch are covered
| by some really cool clouds, for example.
| araes wrote:
| This is perhaps one of the sadder articles I have ever seen on
| here, and endemic of a lot other parts of society. "Somebody
| already posted a pretty picture online, there is now no point in
| me taking pictures ever again."
|
| Imgur/Tiktok/TV give me this sensation constantly. The pictures
| and lives they all claim to have are all so incredible, I should
| never move again. I can never do anything as cool or fun as them
| anyway. I just should just sit alone and jitter with
| jealousy/misery/desire/hate at how boring my life is compared to
| "get naked in the woods and have a dance party island."
| MrJohz wrote:
| I don't get the impression that the author is particularly
| disappointed by this state of affairs, though. Their passion
| seems to be less in the photography, and more in the collation
| and organisation of images - and if they can't get enough
| images themselves, they'll go out there and take them. My
| impression of the post was that they seemed positive that other
| people are doing this work - and far better than the writers -
| leaving them to get on with doing other things.
|
| I guess it's similar to the tradeoffs of moving from doing a
| particular job, to managing others doing the job. Yes, you're
| less hands-on, but if you do your job well, you become a force-
| multiplier for other people, which for some people can be much
| more rewarding.
|
| I know another active Wikipedian photographer, and I get the
| impression that, while he enjoys the photography, the joy for
| him comes predominantly from the use of the photos, rather than
| the experience of using them. If he didn't need to take photos,
| I imagine he'd find some other, similar way to satisfy his
| archivist urges.
| omoikane wrote:
| Summary: this person stopped taking photos and uploading them to
| Wikipedia because public photos of urban areas that contribute to
| digital archives are now abundant.
|
| Given the title, I was expecting something about why they stopped
| photography as a hobby, which is not what this article is about.
| themadturk wrote:
| That was _really_ confusing to me. The article gave no real
| reason why the author stopped taking photos. It 's not at all
| clear that he what he did was stop taking photos to upload to
| Wikipedia.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-08-16 23:02 UTC)