Today's cameras have auto-focus, face recognition, image stabilization and auto exposure control. Making a good photograph has never been easier. It's all you have to do is point your camera in the direction of something interesting or beautiful and voila, you're a photographer ... and an artist!
I recently had a conversation with a photographer friend about how technology has made such a positive impact on photography and the arts in general. Never before have artists been afforded so many choices in expressing themselves creatively. Today's technology allows us to make images without the inconvenience of processing film and working in a wet darkroom. You press the button and within a few minutes can have a museum quality print. Talk about easy!
Capturing and making a beautiful image is easy, but hold on a minute ... photography is no longer about process unless of course you are working in some alternative process such as platinum/palladium, gum or wet collodion to name a few. Current technology allows just about anyone to make a nice print from a digital file. Consequently, the ease of making a competent image is driving artists and photographers to to go beyond process and concentrate more on content. What is the artist's concept and personal vision? What is he or she trying to say?
The artist, Chuck Close once intimated that making competent photographs was easy ... the hard part was expressing one's personal vision. This speaks volumes for the state of photography in 2017.
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