Rec | VALUING PHYSICAL PHOTOGRAPHY ABOVE ALL ELSE

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valuing physical photography above all else

Rant incoming: we need to place more value on printed photography rather than treating photographs merely as objects of our brief attention. I can physically feel a need for this. A real object of memory that we can hold and keep and watch fade. A piece of art on your wall to look at every day that reminds you of another time, a place you’ve been, a person you’ve been, how you felt. I’m so glad that film photography still exists, and that people actually care here. It scares me to think that it might not one day, and that my kids might not be able to experience the pure joy and magic of shooting film.
It also scares me to look at photography’s place in the commercial art world, and how devalued it is in the past couple years. I know a big reason for this is obviously that they can be reproduced, but I also think a lot of people don’t see the value in photography anymore. after IG became a mall. we should all be buying prints. If everyone was buying prints, the economy would probably be way better and then the film industry would be saved and photographers could live ❤️
I reserve the right to edit this post when I’m not stoned anymore
One more thing: the minute i started thinking about photography less like journaism and more like painting i felt so much better about everything. it just made sense finally. Idk how to explain it. It doesnt have to be fast. it doesn’t even have to make sense.

@sabrina

Mar 3, 2024

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@cjthedj30

i agree! for me, the art of photography is in the composition of an image, the resulting photo is the means of which your art is captured. Photography is beautiful because it is so strong in its ability to capture the art you already see in the physical world, unlike other media forms. I do not use any social media and I have been a photographer for years- to me, my photos are precious and intimate, regardless of the content. I hang photos wall-to-wall in my home because I love being surrounded by the physical reminder of all of the beauty I have seen in the world. it gives me hope that I am not alone in this!

Apr 16, 2024

@wrytings

Beautiful. Thank you for this⏱🙈😘

Mar 21, 2024

@riiia

HEARD. FELT. YES.

Mar 3, 2024

@theclack

Rant Received: I've been drafting a newsletter about this exact thing, about how physical media is so important and so overlooked. I think of photographers like Vivian Maier who created massive bodies of work in complete privacy, only for it to be discovered posthumously. Even small, seemingly insignificant candid moments in family photo albums. All of it contributes to a collective historical record of our human experience that can be passed on for generations. And with photography only being a relatively recent mainstay in our personal lives (~100 years), I think we have yet to see its long-term benefits of cultural learning and understanding (maybe too optimistic?) The places where our digital photos end up these days were never meant to last. Storage media doesn't typically last more than 10 years, and the tech platforms that host our images have no stake in the safety of them. (MySpace had a migration a few years ago that lost a bunch of user data, and Photobucket locked down free accounts, and people with old accounts may not remember how to get into them. Those are just a couple examples.) I COULD GO ON

Mar 3, 2024

@sabrina

theclack YES! I resonate deeply with everything you said. I want to read the newsletter!

Mar 3, 2024

@applesapples22

theclack yes!! yes! i would love to read the newsletter

Mar 3, 2024

@theclack

sabrina applesapples22 It may be my next edition now that I'm all fired up about it! Here's the main page if you want to be on the list: https://chrisdamore.substack.com/

Mar 3, 2024

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feel like phone photos feel so much less permanent than film or digicam, it almost orients photography to be a functional medium instead of an artistic one... my camera roll is mostly just photos of stuff i want to remember to buy, or text message attachments. if that's how your brain is conditioned to think about photography, muscle memory for photographing stuff that feels more... photo-worthy will atrophy
i used to carry both a polaroid + 35mm camera with me every time i left the house but found myself struggling to actually use them for this reason; occasionally inspiration strikes when you see cool shit in your city or a beautiful sunset or whatever, but serendipity is notoriously unreliable
i think that having a list of things you can condition yourself to photograph / be on the lookout for as you're out and about, like friends, landscapes, skylines, interiors, etc. has been a lot more helpful for me. go out with the express intention to photograph <thing> a couple of times. then, start bringing a small portable camera with you when you leave, and the cue-craving-action-reward cycle will eventually take over and you'll have more photos that feel special and worth showing to others

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