mad collective self-delusion that we are all artists

desantnik said:
Surprised nobody has posted this up on here yet:

"Join Instagram, join a collective act of self-delusion"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...gram-collective-act-self-delusion?INTCMP=SRCH

It starts about Instagram but don't worry if Instagram isn't your thing, it goes on to slag off all amateur photographers.
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A few comments below the article are interesting!

Oh Jonathan loses his love for Photography because he can't think of anything better to shoot than water lillies at Kew Gardens. Note to budding photographers, just because Jonathan Jones has nothing of interest to document, doesn't mean the photographic medium is dead.
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@JTStone - Jones is just expressing his snobbery at the prospect of enjoying something that quite popular with the masses. If hardly anyone did it he would boast of being a trend-setter ahead of the plebeian crowd.
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Jones talks disparagingly of people who want to 'feel special' or who are only 'playing' at being artists, but his real problem is that *he* wants to feel special when he plays at being an artist, so all popular artistically-inclined activities are apparently offensive to him.
I highly doubt that anyone else at Kew Gardens was left crestfallen by the sight of others around them engaging in the same activity.
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He has a point about how you differentiate yourself when there are millions of photos taken and uploaded every second. How do you stand out in a crowd of people many of whom are trying to do exactly that? Unique vision doesn't last long as soon as something really fresh and new appears then lots jump on the same bandwagon and its suddenly everywhere.
 
Oh dear, I know lots of other people paint, so perhaps I should throw away my brushes, in the fear that someone else might paint the same scene as me. Visual interpretation is a personal thing, images mean different things to different people.

Sharing those images on such sites may be for personal or family gratification. I doubt that most of the population aren't interested in hundreds of shots of little freddie, in much the same way as I'm not interested in folk who post on Twitter that they had cornflakes for breakfast.
 
It's a very perceptive piece.
However it disregards positive aspects like how taking and looking at pictures can help us be more aware of what is beautiful and valued in our landscapes and culture.
 
srichards said:
He has a point about how you differentiate yourself when there are millions of photos taken and uploaded every second. How do you stand out in a crowd of people many of whom are trying to do exactly that? Unique vision doesn't last long as soon as something really fresh and new appears then lots jump on the same bandwagon and its suddenly everywhere.
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I differentiate myself from other the masses as I'm still learning photography and put a lot of thought into the shot I'm about to take.

Lining up the composition, thinking of the correct exposure, capturing the colour, compensating for movement, forward planning for weather conditions etc.

These are the conditions that are not represented in a photo which he refers to as being taken by Instagram users. So I've no problem going out there with my entry level DSLR and my cheap tripod with the intention of capturing the best images I possible can.

For me, a part of it is capturing a good photo, the other part is developing an eye for it. Training myself to look for the unique photo that no-one has seen yet.
 
Steve_o said:
I differentiate myself from other the masses as I'm still learning photography and put a lot of thought into the shot I'm about to take.

Lining up the composition, thinking of the correct exposure, capturing the colour, compensating for movement, forward planning for weather conditions etc.

These are the conditions that are not represented in a photo which he refers to as being taken by Instagram users. So I've no problem going out there with my entry level DSLR and my cheap tripod with the intention of capturing the best images I possible can.

For me, a part of it is capturing a good photo, the other part is developing an eye for it. Training myself to look for the unique photo that no-one has seen yet.
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+1
Also just getting out there, off the beaten track and there's no knowing what surprises are around the next corner. It's so rewarding.
 
I don't thinmk it is slagging off amateur photographers. It is more about what you do with the images once taken.
Why do people post images on Internet sites is the question for me, what is the point, what are they trying to get out of it etc,.
The answers to this question may be what the author of the article is missing?
 
I think Jones has been kissed by a dementor or something. It's like he never had more than a pretentious self-delusion of the wider implications of his own photographic journey. Probably for the best, he's now lost that. The rest is all just projection, and can be dismissed.
 
The article writer does seem to have disappeared up his own aperture somewhat. There's a lot of sour grapes expressed!
 
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