When I started Uni in the 90s I was enrolled in Photomedia. I ended up having to change my major for affordability reasons but I love the medium of film and consider myself an 'artistic snob'.
Often I get asked why I don't put my stuff out there and the reason is that almost anyone nowadays can take photos and start their own business with or without talent. The sort of thing I want to do is photojournalism and thay ship has sailed for me. Never got the opportunity as there were 2 kids to provide for and now as Mekon stated they just take submissions from people's iphones.
Even now I still have ingrained in my psyche to try and capture that perfect shot in as few attempts as possible. I never use filters. I occasionally crop but then I used to do that before anyway.
What I miss is the whole process. The taking of the shots, the anticipation as to whether they would work and whether I had got the chemical mix right in the manual processing. And the printing... the test strips and then seeing the images come up in the developing tray in the darkroom. Techniques like cross processing and push processing are lost. Seems the basics of shot composition is lost too. Gone are the days where this was taught as an art. Now they just take a million shots and filter /manipulate them to death. I guess we could also say the same thing about music with auto tune. Gone are the days where the arts opportunities were given to the people with talent
I remember in 1995 being told by one of the lecturers that photography would become obsolete. I didn't believe him. I also didn't believe them when they said that TV would change from broadcasting to narrowcasting... netflix and youtube anyone....
I hope to see a return to film. Might separate the people with actual skill from the hacks. But I doubt it will ever become the dominant medium again.
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