I think I figured out the cause of the photography age gap

[Brad Bohland]

Traditional older photo hobbyists view photography as the end. "Millennials" and the like use photography as a means to an end...

This is an interesting take on millennial photography by the photographers themselves, and suggests a more complicated (maybe even impossible) answer to your question:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewtuc...-it-feels-like?utm_term=.fqLarMNVg#.nsZEb9B6G

 

[mosswings]

Agreed. A large number of people of all ages shoot with phones and a small number of people of all ages shoot with cameras.

Agreed... I sold cameras for a bit and folks of all ages were buying them. Being interested in photography as an artistic medium isn't tied to age, it's just something that you either have or you don't. The attempt to tie cell phone use to some kind of "grand unified theory of millennials" seems pretty silly to me. It's clear to me that in this day and age cell phone use, social media and the use of dedicated camera gear are all things that transcend age...

--
my flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/128435329@N08/

Yep. I've said several times in the past that photography with a camera is equivalent to giving a lecture; sharing pictures with a smartphone is having a face-to-face conversation (but with all your friends at once). One carefully plans and crafts a lecture, practices one's delivery and stagecraft, and speaks on subjects of some significance, hopefully knowledgeably. Conversations are opportunistic, ephemeral, often ill-advised, and frequently focused on the speakers. Also wonderfully fun.

You can of course deconstruct and rebut this analogy all you like...it's just something to make me think in a bit different way about things. The point here is that lectures and conversations are both valid methods of communication - they just serve different purposes. And people of all ages engage in both.

Photography with cameras involves a lot of craft - and any skills-intensive pursuit attracts those who love the technical aspects. It's "serious". And that's a different mindset. However, the compositional, artistic aspects of serious photography can also be employed by smartphone users, and denying this is not much better than snobbery. They are different tools for different, but not disjoint, purposes.

Photography with cameras also involves a lot of expense. And that also creates tribes - in this case, tribes with lots of disposable income, which usually means older white males. With all their associated baggage. Good photographs taken with smartphones can be a real threat, sadly.

Going back to my original point - I find myself holding more conversations than giving lectures these days. I learned a bit about the craft, enough to know that I enjoy the process of taking a photograph with a well-sorted-out tool. But I also accept that it isn't my lot in life to always be taking the absolute best images with maximal meaning to be shown only on whitewashed walls, a monk illuminating a text.

Like my former piano teacher said, "only a few of us must be martyrs for our music. The rest of us can have fun with it." She was right. Connecting with people - through music, or images - on the spur of the moment, or carefully planned - is the reason we do these things. Anything that helps us connect better is worthy of our use.

 

[Lee Jay]

The world is moving on without you. Think of all the life moments you'll miss because you didn't bring along your D810, or because you've set an arbitrary standard for visual communication.

Completely the other way around.

Think how many life moments you'll miss because a smartphone doesn't have the capability of capturing them.

I always have a real camera, even if it's a compact, with me. Even a low-end compact is far more capable than an ordinary smartphone simply because it has a focal length range, and most have a bigger sensor and a Xenon flash, plus real, working optical stabilization.

Some life moments that I've captured that you couldn't capture with a smartphone.

--

Lee Jay

 

[SuvoMitra]

... might be able to do with your smartphone.





It is all too easy to assume that phone photos are mostly disposable social messaging vehicles whereas camera photos are (or at least can be) higher art. People who are striving for technique, composition, beauty, etc., are mostly making the latter. Or are they?

My mother lives in India and I live in the UK. She loves landscape, nature and travel photography, and loves to see what I've taken on my latest photo trip. I always want to show her my best stuff because I am grateful for the love of travel and outdoors she instilled in me when I was growing up. So, my routine used to be: come back from trip, load images from serious camera to computer, post-process, print or compress, and then mail or transmit. This is tough to turn around while the excitement of a trip is still fresh.

So, I decided to see what the much-maligned iPhone could offer me and my mother. Below are a few shots I took on my iPhone 6+ using the Pure app (nice set of controls!) or Slow Shutter app (iphone on a tiny travel tripod), processed on the phone itself using LR mobile, and uploaded for my mother and her friends in India within minutes or hours.

I would have been delighted to make any of these shots on a Nikon or Fuji. I love my XT1, but also look forward to what the iPhone 7 brings to the table.




Lake Windermere, Lake District, England.




Widemouth Bay, Cornwall, England.




Gallery window, Inhotim, Minas Gerais, Brazil.




Lake Bassenthwaite and Latrigg, Lake District, England.




Friar's Crag, Derwentwater, Lake District, England.




Elterwater, Lake District, England.




Wildflowers on coastal cliffs, near St Agnes' head, Cornwall, England.




St Ives harbour, Cornwall, England.



--
Suvo Mitra

500px

500px.com

 

[tcg550]

Needing to get known or basing your self worth on the validation of strangers is a psychological condition.

Lol, this is not what social networks are about.

The quote you cut seems to indicate the opposite.

"I am on social media because that is great way to get known..."

 

[Jeff]

The world is moving on without you. Think of all the life moments you'll miss because you didn't bring along your D810, or because you've set an arbitrary standard for visual communication.

Completely the other way around.

Think how many life moments you'll miss because a smartphone doesn't have the capability of capturing them.

I always have a real camera, even if it's a compact, with me. Even a low-end compact is far more capable than an ordinary smartphone simply because it has a focal length range, and most have a bigger sensor and a Xenon flash, plus real, working optical stabilization.

Some life moments that I've captured that you couldn't capture with a smartphone.

--

Lee Jay

As I've said repeatedly, it's not an either/or situation, it's a both/and. No one is implying smartphones to the exclusion of other devices ... there are roles for both.

--
Jeff

jck_photos’s albums | Flickr

www.flickr.com

 

[Angel3010]

I'm born in 1999 so I guess I am millenial.

Saying smartphones are bad is stupid, it's just people not adapting the change. Why would everybody need to buy expensive cameras when you can have smartphone that takes quite good photos and you can carry it in pocket.

Because they only take quite good photos in an extremely narrow set of conditions (good light slow subjects, medium wide angle). That's around 1% of my photography.

Also, I am on social media because that is great way to get known, good place for people to see your photography. Nothing bad in that.

Plenty wrong with that. Needing to get known or basing your self worth on the validation of strangers is a psychological condition. Call it immaturity if you like. Try and grow out of it.

 

[Angel3010]

Needing to get known or basing your self worth on the validation of strangers is a psychological condition.

Lol, this is not what social networks are about. Most people know most of the people they connect with on social media. Ironically, you demonstrate this psychological condition you decry here every time you brag about being a small guy being able to carry a big camera and lenses, or validate yourself by appointing yourself the final judge of all things photography related.

Well said.

 

[yardcoyote]

Beautiful. I've been wanting to try Pure for a while, but alas I am an Android person.

 

[Jeff]

I'm born in 1999 so I guess I am millenial.

Saying smartphones are bad is stupid, it's just people not adapting the change. Why would everybody need to buy expensive cameras when you can have smartphone that takes quite good photos and you can carry it in pocket.

Because they only take quite good photos in an extremely narrow set of conditions (good light slow subjects, medium wide angle). That's around 1% of my photography.

Also, I am on social media because that is great way to get known, good place for people to see your photography. Nothing bad in that.

Plenty wrong with that. Needing to get known or basing your self worth on the validation of strangers is a psychological condition. Call it immaturity if you like. Try and grow out of it.

I can only speak for myself. Let me give you two personal perspectives ....

Social media, in particular Facebook, has completely changed the dynamic of my extended family, over the last few years. The family comprises cousins who I grew up with ages ago and now dispersed across the country, and their children in various places around the globe. With the passing of my dad and his siblings, the glue that holds this crew together is both the simple and mundane updates on family, who is getting together with whom, and the major life events of births, deaths, and weddings.

This past weekend, for example, a few of those cousins traveled across country to be with us at our son's wedding, and we'll be joining her later in the year at her wedding.

Our son and new wife, now traveling in Europe, plan to stop and visit a distant cousin who they've stayed in touch with via Facebook.

The second perspective comes from the two months we spend each summer at our lake home. This is a very rural area, with a unique lake culture. There Facebook is everything. There's no television, no radio to speak of, the local paper comes out twice a week is mainly police reports and obits. But on Facebook ... oh my gosh ... it's shop and swap, real estate, fishing reports, organizing get togethers, chatter about weather, boat repairs, you name it.

Social media is now the glue that binds many families and communities.

Are there pathologies out there? Of course, we're talking about real people after all.

But to say "Plenty wrong with that. Needing to get known or basing your self worth on the validation of strangers is a psychological condition. Call it immaturity if you like. Try and grow out of it." is simply wrong, even ignorant of the role of social media in many people's lives.

With regard to photography, it seems to me there are some interesting and unique aspects to visual communication via social media than more traditional photography. Sportsaccordy, for example, mentioned the role of context. There's a lot to talk about.

Your across-the-board rejection of social media is, imho, more than a bit off-base.

Maybe you should have read the quote I quoted. I've bolded it for you above.

 

[Brad Bohland]

I'm born in 1999 so I guess I am millennial.

According to this, you are a millennial.





http://www.theatlantic.com/national...on-begins-and-ends-according-to-facts/359589/

Why would everybody need to buy expensive cameras when you can have smartphone that takes quite good photos and you can carry it in pocket. Of course real cameras take better photos but people who aren't really into photography don't need anything better.

Exactly.

 

[Brad Bohland]

Below are a few shots I took on my iPhone 6+...

Love the second shot.

Just curious, what did you take this lovely shot with?




by Suvo Mitra

 

[Jeff]

Wonderful shots. Gradually turning into a fan of LR mobile, too.

 

[Angel3010]

I read what you wrote. You might look again at what you wrote and ask yourself how you would respond to such judgement based on what I'm assuming is little personal experience with social media.

 

[Lee Jay]

Do you realize person who is behind the camera also metters, not only camera?

Do you realize that the person behind the camera can't overcome camera limitations?

Secondly, I can see you are extremly open-minded person. What do you say about professional photographers who are on instagram, immature?

Marketing.

They seek for attention?

Business.

It is good way to show your photos.

I don't have any particular need to show my photos to anyone but my family.

I don't value opinions of strangers so much, but they are for sure more objective than your family and friends. But if my photo gets featued on several bigger hubs, it means picture is something.

No, it doesn't. It means some random strangers liked it. In many cases, that means it's actually nothing by eye candy.

Where am I supposed to do it?

No where.

 

[Lee Jay]

No one is implying smartphones to the exclusion of other devices ...

Many people do exactly that.

there are roles for both.

To me, there's no excuse for using a smartphone when a compact is so much better and takes up almost no space.

 

[SuvoMitra]

Hi Brad,

This one was taken with my Fuji XT1+18-55mm.

Thanks!

 

[Klaus dk]

In my youth, we had the "traditionalists" and the "available light" crowd. Every generation tries to distinguish their style of anything (music, fashion, photography, design etc.) from the older generations, believing they are inventing the world anew.

Of course there are photographers obsessed with technology and others who regards content as the only important aspect of their pictures. IMO, neither get the full picture.

The great photographers records great content with great technique. Many of us try to do the same, but fail in one or both aspects.

 

[sportyaccordy]

To me, there's no excuse for using a smartphone when a compact is so much better and takes up almost no space.

--
Lee Jay

Extra cost, extra space, and for someone who likes to share photos online, extra steps getting the photos to a device that enables editing and sharing. Smartphones bundle all that into one device you are going to have with you all the time anyway, for little added cost.

I've been asking you this for years and getting no answer- why should anyone subscribe to your edicts on the "right" way to do photography?

 

[Brad Bohland]

Hi Brad,

This one was taken with my Fuji XT1+18-55mm.

Thanks!

Thanks, Suvo.

They're both great shots, but I'd be surprised if many disagreed that the dedicated camera in this instance produces better IQ (which isn't to say anything negative about iPhones, at all--the IQ is very good).