“We therefore consume images fleetingly and randomly. It takes very special pictures to grasp and hold our attention. We need to be seduced by images that outdo reality through excessiveness—as in advertising and movies” (Constructed Realities: The Art of Staged Photography Edited by Michael Kohler). What do you think about this quote? How do you think that our lives are changing as the speed of our interaction with photographic images grows?
I agree with this quote because photography is becoming so much more common, that we must rely on GREAT photography to really wow the viewers. It is sort of scary to me as a photographer that just anyone can go get a pretty decent digital SLR for less than $500 and then suddenly think that they are a photographer, but as this quote says, the photos must seduce us and "outdo reality" of regular photography. Our lives will be more effected by this, because it will be much harder to sort through the quantity in order to find the "quality".
“But the term ‘Infotainment’ also implies this: with the gradual fictionalization of even the news, the old categorical oppositions of ‘documenting’ and ‘staging’, appearance and reality gradually dissolve. They are being replaced by a variety of hybrid forms for which it will be impossible, in fact pointless, to attempt to distinguish between fact and fiction. Even the accusation that ‘Infotainment’ is guilty of continuous ‘lying’ is therefore unjustified, for it is neither ‘true’ nor ‘false’. Like advertising, movies and all other genres that adhere to the laws of fiction, it works at a level beyond these oppositions—the level of ‘hyper-reality’, where reality is ‘simulated’.” (Constructed Realities: The Art of Staged PhotographyEdited by Michael Kohler). What are your thoughts on “Infotainment” and how it affects our lives? How does it affect the way we see and understand “reality”? How does it affect photography in general?
I have mixed emotions about this. I really LOVE the opportunity that photoshop holds and what it can do to photos, but I also feel that it has really changed the art part of "photography". If anything now, photography is becoming more of a mixed or hybrid form as mentioned above. I just think that it is crazy that people rely on photography as affirmations of certain buzz and news stories, even knowing how much computers can alter images and skew the truth behind them. That is like taking evidence statements at a crime scene from somebody that you know is completely capable of lying. This type of photography and "infotainment", by no means needs to stop, people just need to know that it should be taken more as a grain of salt.
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