Amazing Read in The Guardian

[clayne]

I use unix systems all day to and am not a stranger to any of that but I surely don't equate mainstream accessibility of it to mainstream accessibility of the arts. I consider them two entirely separate worlds and ones I especially like to keep separate from each other.

Don't get me wrong I do get your point I just disagree that removing the lake of fire results in a higher net gain.

 

[zsas]

I guess I see what I do (programming/analytics/bi) as art and science.

My idol btw one'a my professors declared that programming is 50% science and 50% art).....

Just remember back in the day, mainframe time was hundreds of dollars an hour....a computer these days is free (eg library)....a 8x10 = mainframe and Nikon Dx = library PC.....

Just tools....

Someone can write some great code in vi or notepad at the library......

 

[zsas]

I just disagree that removing the lake of fire results in a higher net gain.

Where did I say that art is "better" today than it was "back in the day"? I didn't. I just said why judge. Do whatcha like a d call it a day.....

I'd never say that about computing either (it was better in the summer of '69 when Ritchie, Thompson et al cooked up unix vs say VB.... )

I'd say it was different but whose to judge today's "better"....

 

[Truzi]

Okay so are you saying that photography is better off now that digital is mainstream? I wasn't aware cameras, a tool for visual ART and EXPRESSION, were the same as computers.

Digital cameras basically are computers

 

[removed account4]

it wasn't a bad article ... i guess.
the world is all about data now
i keep seeing those virginia slims ads " we've come a long way baby"
sure we have, and it cost alot...

the author got a few thing wrong. Jacques-Mandé Daguerre didn't invent photography in france
he commercialized it, just like eastman didn't invent roll film, he stole someone else's idea
and commercialized it. the first kodak's didn't cost 1$ they cost 3 month's wages
when he ( eastman ) was sued he nearly lost everything.

This has happened to me so often that I no longer read comments: many an enjoyable and engaging article has been ruined by the comments. I wonder if there's a way for firefox to block them...

its not the browser .. its the reader ...
he/she doesn't have to read the comments.

 

[clayne]

I guess I see what I do (programming/analytics/bi) as art and science.

My idol btw one'a my professors declared that programming is 50% science and 50% art).....

Just remember back in the day, mainframe time was hundreds of dollars an hour....a computer these days is free (eg library)....a 8x10 = mainframe and Nikon Dx = library PC.....

Just tools....

Someone can write some great code in vi or notepad at the library......

Ah but one important point you leave out in the analogy: quality of code. The ultimate equalizers != net higher quality of code. That's the entire point I'm making.

You can hand cameras and computers to monkeys, you know what happens after that.

Update: I see you did address this in your later post but I believe if we don't "address" better we're just part of the problem in the race to the bottom. To mix analogies, would you like to see all photographers replaced with the equivalent of 3rd world contractors? That may be what the possibilities entail but I can surely have a problem with that because the NET outcome is worse.

 

[removed account4]

Ah but one important point you leave out in the analogy: quality of code. The ultimate equalizers != net higher quality of code. That's the entire point I'm making.

You can hand cameras and computers to monkeys, you know what happens after that.

sure ... they take 1.000,000 exposures and get a national geographic cover shot !

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

My idol btw one'a my professors declared that programming is 50% science and 50% art).....

Alfred Stieglitz once said that "Art is the affirmation of Life."

Tough to see that affirmation extended to include, say, hardcore C++. Or even softcore Web environments. Object orientation as a paradigm is by definition and design an approach to simulating Life via abstraction. More often than not in modern usage, such abstraction debases Life rather than affirms it.

Or to put it more succinctly...

Programming is NOT an affirmation of Life. It's whole purpose is to fake Life. For profit. Your professor only told you that to make you feel better about working 80-hour weeks for the next 50 years.

Ken

 

[MattKing]

Programming is like theoretical mathematics.

Quality requires elegance

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Quality requires either time or money.

Remember? Pick any two...



Ken

 

[pdeeh]

smash the looms! smash them!

 

[zsas]

Geeezzzzeeeee Ken that's a pretty grim perspective. Fwiw, I do analytics/BI/bigdata/stats....my code merely try's to "explain the world", not clone or "fake life"......

My point is that those that do what I do, like my professor said, are combining science/art.....same could be said for photography, and therefore, one shouldn't create articles like the Guardian piece in question, and call out discrete populations of people and declare them X or Y....that is polarizing-writing.....the same garbage that fills these new "news" shows all over cable....

Last, judging what is quality....well, we do it every day....do it local though (ie wow that artist did a good job, or that programmer did a good job, or that iPhone lightmeter app called Foo-Meter is a piece a junk), not all people who use X tool are Y....that folks, is blanket-polarizing-generalizations....that just doesn't make anyone feel good about themselves (both parties)....I happily live in both worlds....I use the tools to communicate and create meaning, be it art, science or a combination of thereof...

 

[blansky]

Interesting article. A bit of hyperbole. A lot of death.

With any great innovation comes change and in the case of computer based tech EVERYTHING changed.

Much like the printing press, the industrial revolution, and the advent of first railway travel, then air travel.

Change is a bitch.

A good analogy to analog photography is the changes that Swiss watch companies went through with the mass migration to quartz watches in the 80s. Many, many companies went broke.

But essentially an antiquated technology now flourishes for a myriad of reasons that have nothing to do with reason.

 

[zsas]

^good points Blanksy. Same could be said for IBM & DEC* in the 80's and 90's with the switch from mainframes/minicomputers to server/LAN model.....

This stuff is indemic of change/innovation and hopefully it spurs good things to occur....

We all know that with broader access to tools/distribution that separating wheat/chaff is possibly harder

I am sure this same debate proliferated back in Gutenberg's day....

Loved the looms comment pdeeh

*footnote - DEC couldn't transition fast enough, IBM did, getting rid of manufacturing and is now a services company (consulting, middleware....)

 

[Pioneer]

It was a very sad day for whip manufacturers when Henry Ford set up his assembly line.

 

[PKM-25]

Yeah, great article, except for two things:

1. It pulls people further away from even thinking of film as an option, makes it seem more dead.

2. Makes it seem like there is no hope for professional photographers when in fact some are doing great, like me.

I know amateur camera owners, including several on here love to hear that pros are going out of business...sorry to tell you, we are not. We are not only great photographers, but great visionaries of staying ahead of trends.

In short, more web born BS...

 

[clayne]

PKM yep absolutely agreed. The author is doing the typical sensationalist "look what I can observe! I'm so smart" crap most of the "opinion" based journalists do.

I also heavily dislike his implications that Kodak is no longer making film. That pisses me off (and no AgX I don't want to hear about KPP technicalities).

In short another "film is dead" article at it's core with the self appointed hearse chasers trying to garner attention from it.

 

[tron_]

Wow. Great article. Thanks for posting.

Particularly insightful passage:

"Instagram may have only had 13 employees on the books, but really it has more than 100 million people who work for the company, providing immense amounts of personal information and location metadata. Instagram users' pathetic and narcissistic freakout in December over copyright terms, as if anyone wanted to sell your cat photos in the first place, totally missed the point. The value of any photo is pretty much nil, as professional photographers have learned to their dismay. Only the data attached to them, which you give away in every social media app's terms of service, have real value."

I wanted to bring up this paragraph too. Can anyone explain how the metadata/location information attached to these photos is so valuable? Do other companies pay Instagram to "sell" this information to them for marketing/business purposes?

 

[pdeeh]

It's not the metadata on the photo itself - using the word "metadata" is accurate but slightly misleading in this context - it's all the associated clicks, referral data and whatnot; it is data about the owner of the photo, or the people who link to the photo, and the activity that goes on around the photo that is valuable. That's why you/we are the product, not the photo itself.

 

[tron_]

Forgive my stupidity but how does that data translate into profit?

 

[Moopheus]

Forgive my stupidity but how does that data translate into profit?

In the broadest sense, any data that tells you something about the interests, purchases, travels, etc. of the user is data that can be sold for marketing purposes. If Instagram has data that says, say, some of our users vacation in Ireland, they might get Aer Lingus to buy ads. You might also recall that FB floated a plan where Instagram would sell content, essentially acting as a microstock agency, but that users (providers of content) would get bupkis. This didn't go over very well.

 

[batwister]

Thinking people (and this includes thinking photographers) haven't disappeared, they have just distanced themselves (or have been forced to distance themselves) from the hoard. Creativity hasn't 'gone down' as the author reckons, there's just a bigger gulf now between true creatives and self-marketing posers. We all like to think of ourselves as special these days (thanks to reality TV and "you're worth it" style mass advertising). The result is, we aren't discerning enough anymore when it comes to 'the gifted' - because questioning average Joe's actual talent, ability and value ultimately means you have to question your own - and that kind of existential crisis is something we all want to avoid.

This is the price we have paid for gaining some resemblance of 'equality'. Let's all be special together!

 

[pstake]

Thinking people (and this includes thinking photographers) haven't disappeared, they have just distanced themselves (or have been forced to distance themselves) from the hoard. Creativity hasn't 'gone down' as the author reckons, there's just a bigger gulf now between true creatives and self-marketing posers. We all like to think of ourselves as special these days (thanks to reality TV and "you're worth it" style mass advertising). The result is, we aren't discerning enough anymore when it comes to 'the gifted' - because questioning average Joe's actual talent, ability and value ultimately means you have to question your own - and that kind of existential crisis is something we all want to avoid.

This is the price we have paid for gaining some resemblance of 'equality'. Let's all be special together!

+1

 

[paul_c5x4]

Someone can write some great code in vi or notepad at the library......

Can we start a vi versus emacs debate

 

[jp498]

Can we start a vi versus emacs debate

I'll stick to nano (previously pico), after having used both vi and emacs at various times.