I Can See it For You Wholesale

I wonder sometimes about the extent to which my street photography skews toward white subjects…there is a trend there, I’m fairly sure. In part this is because some of the bustling areas I like to photograph in are comparatively gentrified, and also I think partly because of a sort of habitual racism or reverse racism (or maybe a little of each) which registers caucasians as fair targets, as opposed to people of other ethnicities. (And yes, I do sometimes think of street photography subjects in that way, as targets.)

I think also, though, it touches on the problem of reality in photography. One of the things that I think draws me to some of my street photography subjects is the illusions they carry with them, and in general white people are a much richer source of illusions than people of color. (If you don’t know what I mean, try googling “double consciousness.”)

Not sure why that leapt to mind just now. Something to do with Robert Frank, I imagine, since I’m reading the expanded edition of Looking In right now, and since I have a lot of qualms about how Frank deals with race. Also possibly because of this post on Colin Pantall’s blog, which was in my google reader earlier today.

In case anyone is curious and didn’t already know, I’m of mixed race.

In the same way, I wonder if photography and art isn’t degraded by the internet, if looking at pictures on the internet isn’t remarkably similar to watching 2 minutes of All About Eveon youtube and checking out the number of stars on IMDB and imagining it’s the same as watching the movie.

Colin Pantall’s blog: Endless wittering about photography

I would accept this as a valid concern, were it not for the fact that this is almost exactly how the vast majority of museum-goers look at photographs, too. They glance at them briefly, they read the little placard next to them, they may or may not make some brief technical or aesthetic observation to the person they dragged along with them, and then they move on tot he next one, and dispatch with equal speed and dispassion.

The only difference between this experience and the experience one gets on flickr is that (a) the image is often larger, (b) you don’t usually drag your spouse or friend with you to the internet, and (c) the offhand remarks on the internet are often persistent and can be perused by all who come after.

Of course, you don’t have to behave this way when you go to a museum or gallery, and some people do not. However, those people are the exception.

WTF?

“The last three years of data have shown a steady decline in people who report owning a traditional film camera, decreasing from 67% in 2007, to 61% in 2008, and dropping all the way to 48% in 2009.”

How does that show the “imminent death” of film cameras? Casual snapshooters who were going to switch to digital already have, and that part of the film market is already dead. In fact, I’m surprised there are that many in 2009 who acknowledge owning film cameras…

The people who are still shooting a lot of film (excluding disposable cameras) are not lay people, they’re pros and earnest amateurs. They make up a small fraction of the population, but they shoot a lot of film. And anyone who knows anything about photography already knows all these facts.

But thanks, “provider of award-winning imaging services for wireless carriers” for this press release which is doubtless going to be creating hideously annoying threads in flickr groups for weeks to come.