Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

Photography no longer needs photographers as it has achieved a self-perpetuating autonomous level of existence. As a photographer, this epiphany is akin to outright blasphemy. However, as I look around at the powerful and viral images today that are changing lives and opinions I am struck by how few, if any, are taken by trained professionals and given prominence by the cadre of elite gate keepers on editorial boards who controlled channels of distribution in the pre-digital age. Instead, we have operators who are carrying out a program of taking pictures guided by a narcissistic addiction to “likes” on social media, driven by a primitive impulse not much different from that which motivates ants. Think of them not as individuals but as a collective entity, casually recording, unencumbered by the thought process, photographing as if by ritual or habit, at last making a reality, Borges’ map of the world that exactly duplicates it in a 1:1 ratio. What made photography powerful was its ability to be reach millions. But what made photographers powerful was the fact that so few of them were allowed to reach those millions. With access to the world now open to all with the touch of a button the floodgates are open, reducing the importance of any one photographer and any one photograph. With more images being uploaded in a minute today than were taken during the entire 19th century the skilled and thoughtful photographer has become a quaint anachronism from an earlier age.