A picture is worth a thousand words. There are a lot of hidden messages within photographs that a lot of people can’t seem to fully grasp. Take the featured image above for example. What’s the tone? What do the colors tell you about the emotion of the object? See photography used to be an art. Whether you were taking photos of a wedding or if you were just shooting a random shot of a tree. There was always some kind of a hidden message. Now photography has become something that just about everyone can do. With the ability to quickly pull out your phone and take a picture and easily edit the photo right then and there. However, this process has ruined the photography industry. Not in the sense that photography itself is ruined, in fact its becoming more popular. But the art of photography itself (like photo-shopping, back drops, lighting, etc.) is dying (Manuel).
Portrait photography with a professional DSLR camera such as Nikon, or Canon required multiple elements in order for your photos to turn out professional. Sure the high cost of the camera may have helped the process a little bit, but if you wanted it to look like it came straight out of a magazine, you needed a little bit more than just the fancy camera alone. The lighting needed to be perfect whether it was natural from the sun, or unnatural from the light bulb. The back drop needed to be perfectly placed. Your model’s pose needed to be precise. The settings on the camera needed to be just right. And if the exterior elements weren’t enough to help your photos, you needed a little extra help on a technological basis. That’s where the effects of Photoshop came into play. It was here that you would have to manipulate your photo in such a complicated way that it looked so high grade that people would think it was a stock photo. Now what do we do? We simply pull out our phones, snap the picture, and if we don’t like the raw look of it we simply push a button on our phones and it enhances it for you. Photography has become less of an art-form now because we can just do everything that a DSLR camera and photo shop can do, on our phones.
Photography used to have a deeper meaning. There was always a message that you wanted to send to the person viewing the photo. There were color representations and an emotion on a persons face that you would have to read. But what was the message? What was the photographer trying to portray? The answer was entirely up to you. Now there’s no secret in a photo. There’s no deeper meaning. People just pull out their phones and take a picture of something or someone and then add a caption to it. No need to strain your brain muscles at all. This has to do with instant gratification. No one wants to work for anything anymore. They just want it right then and there. The same applies for this art form. No one wants to have to work for or work to be able to comprehend the art work of photography.
Millions of photography companies are struggling to make a simple dollar now because of the use of cellphone photography. My brother, (who took the featured image of this article), now has to beg his friends, co workers, and even his own family to let him take photos of them so he can make a little bit of money just to get by. Many photographers now have to have a second job just to maintain themselves. That should bother all of you! I understand that cellphone photography is cheaper and efficient. But it’s lowering our intelligence levels. And most importantly, we are putting photographers out of business. Do yourselves a favor and go out and buy a DSLR camera, learn the functions of it, and get familiar with photoshop. I promise you will not be disappointed.
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