Visual Literacy and You

But in light of what Tony wrote and in observing photographic consumption in society, I’m inclined to change my position. “Literacy” doesn’t just happen. It needs to be taught.

Let’s start with a very simple and common parallel in photography: the filter. When I was a kid, I spent a large chunk of my birthday money buying a Cokin filter set which included a graduated sepia filter and a star filter. In those days, I had to screw on a filter holder to the end of my lens, and then select a filter from a box not so dissimilar from the blood slide box that Dexter kept of his victims.

This isn’t to say that my choice of filters was methodical and carefully planned. Back then, if I saw a shiny object, star filter. Landscape scene, graduated sepia. Nowadays, apps like Instagram and VSCO allow us to apply filters to our images with a simple tap. But can we answer the question: why do we use filters? To induce nostalgia? To emulate film to induce nostalgia? To claim that life is beautiful so #nofilter, but we’re actually using filters? To try to force focus to an element within the photo because we didn’t have the patience or the skill to shoot it right?

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We are visually sophisticated. We know how to work our apps to get that perfect combination of saturation, contrast, and brightness. We read MTF charts and discuss chromatic aberration of each new lens. We consume copious amounts of imagery on a daily basis. But do we know why? And are we able to look at a photo and come up with an informed interpretation of why it is or is not successful?

It is easy to be seduced by a glitzy studio shot that has been Photoshopped to death, but can we appreciate the context of a remarkable photojournalistic image? Can we spot a fake? Do we understand how focal length affects scene compression?

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Because if we cannot, then we will continue to create and consume drivel. This is the evolution in my thinking. I thought that visual literacy would just happen through consumption. But mass consumption leads to appreciation of the lowest common denominator. Take the enormously successful pop star Ariana Grande’s lyric:
""Now that I've become who I really are" is the new "Concrete jungle where dreams are made of"

Catchy beat with a nice hook produced by famous Swede using all known formulas for success, but devoid of meaning – or at the very least, proper grammar. We aren’t advancing the oeuvre much with this one, folks.

Michael Bay creates blockbusters, but he will never be considered in the same breath as Scorsese, Kubrick, Hitchcock, et al. It takes an inspired auteur to push the art of filmmaking to the next level. Similarly, to get into the post-filter age, we’re going to have to actually develop a point of view for our photography. We’re going to have to have enough theory and history to understand other people’s photos. Not all the time, mind you. Photography is still fun after all. But it will enrich our appreciation and ability to be more visually literate as photographers.

It’s fun to be sophisticated, but it’s dumb to be illiterate.

>>3043080
Hitchcock made the blockbusters of his day.

There is such as thing as quality entertainment, A fun movie that is good from a technical standpoint.
Die Hard
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Alien
Jurassic Park

These are all blockbusters and have excellent craft. A movie doesn't get a pass just because it isn't trying to be a Bergman film. In fact I'd argue the inverse, that because the movie isn't trying to do something deeper it has the RESPONSIBILITY to be well crafted. If it isn't, then why am I even watching?

The end of the intelligent blockbuster with the rise of Independence Day and Armageddon was tragic. It means that people have learned to settle for inoffensive and lazy filmmaking rather than to expect quality from the films they watch.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just an impoverished filmmaker with a chip on my shoulder.

>>3043115
That's not really what this threads argument is.
These are metaphors for the approach most of this board has to photography, the polishing of turds, and the unacceptance of photography of documentary or exploratory rather than surface-level aesthetic intentions.

>>3043115
>It means that people have learned to settle for inoffensive and lazy filmmaking rather than to expect quality from the films they watch.
its way more complex than that. people are being emotionally blackmailed constantly into watching and validating certain contents, otherwise they are simply bad, maladjusted people.

>>3043132
>>3043115
>use a movie metaphor to discuss trends in digital photography and post production that often disregard reality or journalistic intentions
>spawn a /tv/ discussion
klasik

>>3043133
4chan discussion is organic. wanna read a thread full of factoids and predictable ""discussion"" over the lame thread premise? then go back to rebbit.

>>3043136
Edgy lil runt aincha

I'm the guy that posted this >>3043115

I'm also a photographer.

Most instagram and facebook posters don't own a camera. They have a cell phone and take pictures when stuff looks pretty or they take one of their SO and apply a color shift in the shadows.

VSCO amateurs don't worry me either. There are some that get work and clients that like the look of fake film but if you're in commercial work you should know that in some ways your work is at risk of being compromised.

The way I look at it. I take my photos for an audience of one and if someone else likes it too, that's fine.

I've had a gallery showing but I've never sold work. I don't have an instagram or a personal website. I don't even have a Flickr. Maybe that's naive. I'll never "make it" that way, but the way I look at it, you have to be in it because you love it and not just to "make it".

Gearfaggotry is a lot worse than using filters anyway.

>>3043072
Post a picture you took.

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>>3043219
:^)

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