RED Cameras, they're all the rage in the Advertising world at the moment, and as usual, any new invention there's a lot of hype and a lot of bullshit that comes out AROUND the object itself.
Its hard to despise a technology. Technology is generally 'attitude neutral' which means it is generally just there, inert, doing nothing. However, it's when people get a hold of it, bend it, twist it, use it, that's what elicits the most reaction. This exact debate has been used to justify peoples stances against further gun control (guns don't kill people, people kill people) to Internet Piracy (we don't offer pirated files, we only offer the torrents[files to get to the files])
And so, we move onto RED cameras, and the latest position is that now, digital photography, is on the out on account of the HD digital image capture of RED that can provide stills of high enough resolution. It's coffin being carried by RED cameras to the technology cemetery down the street.
Incidentally, I should point out that the grave where photography is to be buried happens to be right next to painting (killed by photgraphy), down from the one occupied by radio (killed by television) and books (killed by the internet) which is just left of the plot occupied by writing(killed by blogging), which is next to Blogging (killed by twitter).....you get the idea?
Haven't we been here before? Yes we have, many times. But it still doesn't stop people writing about it
To dismantle this argument is beyound the scope of this blog, not because I am too lazy, but because it has already been done so to some degree by Umberto Eco in this essay writing about the death of writing.
Recently, Cormac MAcarthy's typewriter, which he bought for $50 was sold for over $250,000. He has now bought another one for $20.
It goes a long way to show that great writing, doesnt require the latest kit. Great story telling and great ideas live beyond the technology used to create them on. Its a very important point that most people not involved in the actual craft and production of creative endeavour fail to understand.
Now, why I am against this? Well, when reason and discernment is replaced by fad and fashion, it is usually the account manager who is the first to jump on the new technological bandwagon. I have written about how social media is being gang-tackled by the cerberally challenged non-production people as a way of establishing a process they can hitch their reputations too. But it seems I am not alone, I am sure there are a lot of people out there thinking that RED cameras will indeed spell the end of photography.
As a postscript to this post. My comment, rather scathing, but atleast pertinent to the debate, was deemed too strong for the sensitive folk at business of Fashion
ReplyDeletewho decided not to publish it, but chose instead to accept two pretty ineffectual 'chats'