Is Photography Dead? Can We Kill It?

Sunset at the Beltway

Tonight’s sunset captured by the D300. I spent about 45 minutes about a half mile from my house at the Baltimore Beltway. There’s a road that fronts the Beltway that connects two exits with the fenced of beltway on one side and a barrier wall on the other. At this time of year the setting sun rakes down the road illuminating the brush between the road and the fence.

I’m pushing these color images beyond just the high saturation and high contrast I’ve been doing over the last year and trying to capture and emphasize light itself. I’m concerned more about atmospheric effect that beauty or accuracy. I think I’m joining the “Photography Is Dead” movement.

Wishful Thinking: Should Artists Give the Audience What They Want?Conventional marketing wisdom says you should be ‘customer focused’ and do your best to satisfy consumers’ wants and needs. But it’s a different story when it comes to creative work. Many of the most successful artists achieved fame by provoking and offending public taste.

Killing Photography in the digital age seems to be a good way to provoke the audience.

[Update: The Flickr photo has been replaced with another version. It’s a nice feature of Flickr that’s either relatively new or I never noticed before a few months ago. I’ve decided that while Capture NX is good for many things, Photoshop can be used for more subtle but no less effective manipulations. I’ll bet that both end up in the tool kit. Capture NX for RAW conversion and basic tonal changes and Photoshop for selective enhancements.]

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