Anyone that reads some of the posts in this Blog has already seen me complaining about the excessive and unthoughtful use of some app’s effects.
Just as I start typing I can already see so many pictures floating on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and all over the web with the same looks, that crappy camera and vintage look has taken the world hostage and did spread more than a contagious disease. Desaturated colors, horrible frames and borders, too much or too little contrast are just some of the issues with this effects.
The feeling that the popular photography path was lost and wandering towards crazy and pointless effects faded when I saw this post by PetaPixel. There seems to be life out there. And intelligent! They found some amazing guidelines on a page at NatGeo’s website with some tips to submit photos to this world-renowned publication. As you can see on the image, the editor is hard on his comment:
‘No. If you use one of the myriad alteration “filters” available in your digital photo software, please stop.‘
Please don’t get me wrong, I do believe photo editing is an obligation in photography but just as excessive Photoshop is bad, excessive filters became a problem too. The major issue I see is that many people got seduced by the large library of filters and their ease of use – except maybe some unexplainable names given by Instagram – and started applying the changes without giving any thought. If we add to this equation that everybody has a camera phone all the time, snapping photos became an automatic reflex more than a creation process. The result is that anywhere we look we see avalanches of senseless pictures, all with the same look and feel, as if taken by the same “phoneographer”.
I don’t want to sound grumpy or blame any company for creating effects, this would be like blaming automobile factories for the auto accidents. The only reason to write this post is to try to remember people that there should be a reason behind each photograph, regardless if it is an award-winning piece of art, a family snapshot or a fun picture that makes sense only to you. Photography should start way before the ‘trigger’ is pulled by thinking of your intentions, than imagining how to achieve this result and only then capturing the image. After all this and some careful consideration some sort of photo editing and effects might be considered, but with serious evaluation of the real necessity and results. After all, your pictures should express your vision and not the current trends in editing effects, right?
