What Should Have Been

Spring is here, it is April, and it's already hot. The temperatures are right for summer, but we still have the vibrant Spring colors everywhere. I'm not a photographer, never have been, but I'm enjoying using Instagram to take pictures.

Instagram is a good piece if software, and I can see why people like it (I like it very much myself). But it has a negative effect that is common to modern-day software that is intended to be used to create art. It makes it so quick and easy to create a finished product, that it tempts a lot of people like me (who have no eye for photography) to create lots and lots of finished products that have no substance. Instead of examining the substance of the photograph and admiring the photographer's peculiar genius in selecting the particular subject matter, lighting, and exposure, we revel in the ease of pulling out a high megapixel smartphone, snapping a picture of just about anything, applying a filter, and having the image shared with the whole world in under to minutes.

The same problems apply in other media software: DAW software, video editing software; heck, even word processing software to a certain extent. I admit, there are some benefits to all of this. We capture images we wouldn't otherwise capture, we hear songs that would never have been recorded, we see films that would never have been produced. But the ubiquitous and never ending stream of digital content produced by nearly everyone has made me appreciate more than ever the experience of seeing a good idea, fully developed and beautifully executed, presented by an artist who has taken the time to perfect it at every level, whether or not the artist chose to use modern tools to create it.

Not to digress, but this is why I have always been angered by George Lucas' refurbished Star Wars films released in the 90's. Lucas apparently didn't realize that his biggest fans not only loved the movies because they presented a masterfully crafted, soul-touching story, but because of what Lucas was able to achieve technically and visually with the tools that were available in the late 70's and early 80's. With the new versions, he has erased the simple beauty of what he achieved in the original versions.

Now back to the topic. Does the ease of the digital age make us artistically lazy? I think it does. Probably intellectually lazy too. I suppose the question is how do we make full use of the amazing tools available for creating art withou betraying the works that we create with them~