“But we have learned to “think” in images this way. These are romantic and really somewhat infantile image techniques. They’re childish and nostalgic. They’re about sunny days and buzzing bees and reading books on a porch, and about road trips and romanticizing urban grime and being oh so gently alienated.

And really, it’s gross.

…Actual analog film effects aren’t as “interesting” as the quicky digital ones. They aren’t as thrilling to the eye. They’re not as cheaply emotionally evocative. They’re just pictures.” (via TheAwl, somethingchanged)

I agree with this article, it touches on a lot of the visual trends that aggravate me as a photographer (or just as someone who loves photographs). I use tonality curves to give my photos a certain look, and everyone loves shallow depth of field, but nothing annoys me more than apps and actions that distort and degrade digital photos in an attempt to make them look like film. Beyond the psychology of the photos that Choire discusses and the need to romanticize even the most mundane experiences as ethereal scenes, these popular photos – the ones that people find aesthetically pleasing – are incredibly vapid, they offer nothing, the evoke no expression or experience, they’re not part of a narrative and really have no artistic value beyond the primary read of “pretty colours” or “seductive blur.” Those are the best ones, most bleed with saturation, hyper contrast, and hue shift to the point of abstraction, modifications that would ruin a photograph if the content of the image was at all significant or interesting before applying the offensive presets and fake film/polaroid signifiers.

Photographers such as Terry Richardson, Kenneth Capello, and Mark (The Cobrasnake) Hunter have eluded tricks and trendiness to create raw images that emphasize subject over style, and though their “look” is often replicated, the plagiarists cannot capture the expression and the relationship between the photographer and subject that makes Terry’s, Kenneth’s, and Mark’s photos interesting / successful.

Something the article doesn’t mention is that the popularity of these formulaic and fairytale images seems to coincide with the bleakness of reality that their young creators face, that as poverty, unemployment, [domestic] social unrest, and global political violence all increase, so does the proliferation of these escapist images. Photoshop actions, iOS apps, and cheap DSLRs have made it very easy to create these kinds of pictures, but their popularity is a sociological trend, not a technological one. Something else the article doesn’t take into account is the visual gluttony of viewers, and instant gratification through sites like Tumblr, fffound, Pinterest, and weheartit that overwhelmingly disregard authorship, narrative, or singular importance of any image, instead providing endless streams of images where nothing really stands out.

(I originally posted this over a year ago, but I think it becomes more relevant every day.)