Tuesday 13 March 2012

Everyone Is A Photographer These Days

Opinions are always going to be divided on the question of whether making something easier makes it better. Once upon a time, a camera was pretty much a luxury item – or at the very least, something that you would need to have a real interest in if you were going to own one. These days, every cell phone sold has a camera incorporated into it, and digital cameras are inexpensive.

Because we are all on the Internet, there has been an explosion of people taking photographs of anything that you can name. With the increasing number of sites that act as a digital photo album, people are looking to document their lives in a way that does for photographs what blogs do for the written word. You don't need to be a professional to have a portfolio these days.

People are always going to be skeptical with regard to whether this is a positive development. The argument that many people bring is that everyone considers themselves a photographer just because they took a black and white photograph of a park bench which was partially in shadow. And while some people's online portfolios tend towards the pretentious, this is a fairly cynical argument.

Photographs are important to people because they capture a moment in time. On social occasions and holidays, someone will always have a camera, because they want a graphical depiction of a memory. And while it may get annoying to see people posting photographs of their whole life, you can always just not look.

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