I had an impression Flickr was oriented towards enthusiast photographers, and professionals. Most enthusiast photographers, I thought, wanted control over the creative process and leveraged it create wonderful images. However, looking at Flickr statistics, I am wrong. Either Flickr is not mostly oriented towards photography enthusiasts (doubt it, site is pretty much photographer centric), OR most people are getting great images purely out of old smartphone cameras.
If this is the scenario at Flickr, imagine Instagram which is geared towards sharing snapshot taken through filters to make it more aesthetic.
Yes, camera is just a tool and the photographer is the one that determines the output. However, there is an objective difference between pressing the circle on a screen, and using a dedicated camera with far more control for a given scene. Head over to
https://www.flickr.com/cameras/apple/iphone_7/ or
https://www.flickr.com/cameras/apple/iphone_6/ , latter is over 7 years old now, and see if you can find a fault. The pictures from
https://www.flickr.com/cameras/apple/iphone_xs/ or
https://www.flickr.com/cameras/apple/iphone_11 or
https://www.flickr.com/cameras/apple/iphone_11_pro_max/ are even better!
Fortunately or unfortunately, dedicated cameras are fast disappearing. It suggests that the overwhelming many are right, and the fanatic few (us) are wrong - Smartphones are indeed
EXCELLENT cameras, knowing how to compose and press a circle on a screen
IS good enough, and smartphones are "ample" for all but the most of us (except professionals) - even those that choose to spend and stick to dedicated cameras.
Imagine 5 years from now when smartphones cameras have gotten much much better in any aspect of photography than the iPhone 6 and 7. Canon, with 237 camera models over many decades is bested, by a light year, by a company with 37 models in terms of adoption. I cannot create the images I do create with a phone camera. But then again, I haven't invested in any snap-on lenses for my iPhone, I haven't explored smartphone photography. Who is to say I wouldn't find the same satisfaction, sans thousands of dollars, sans all the lusting after gear, with a smartphone camera, albeit I'd be creating slightly different images as on date? More importantly, is there still place in today's world for enthusiasts who create pictures? When I was a kid, photographs was what you showed your friends and family, and it was well appreciated by them. Today, going by the response of my friends, it takes a "cool shot" such as lightening, highly saturated colors, etc. to get positive response. Very good photos, appreciated by fellow photographers for tonality, sublimity, subtlety, simplicity, naturalism are not nearly as well received by anyone in my friend or family circle.
We are social animals, and the zeitgeist indicates that dedicated cameras, and images created using them, are far less popular than the images created using smartphones. The question it raises is this - will, in the coming decade, our perceptions as a society shift far enough from what was, that smartphone pictures actually become the standard of what should be?
What is your take on this trend? Do you find it disturbing or do you find yourself ignoring it to shoot your next image?
Last edited by brainwave; 10-05-2021 at 05:09 PM.