William Henry Talbot, photographing (or should I say calotyping) Articles of ChinaĀ started a new trend – use captured image not forĀ aestheticĀ pleasure only, but for practical use as well. Nothing really changed since then: as soon as opportunity presents itself, we use camera to inventory our memories in order to remindĀ ourselvesĀ of the past experiences and to share them with others. It doesn’t matter that the picture was taken with a cell phone, that it is blurry and with messed up whiteĀ balanceĀ as long as it serves this purpose.
Roberta Smith is arguing that looking at the scene through theĀ screen of the phoneĀ any different then looking at the scene through the viewfinder of SLR camera so much that it isĀ “changing the look of photography”. Well… in myĀ opinionĀ it depends on what photography we are talking about. I don’t see any difference between collecting images of memories or images of China. Both inventories are not pieces of art, and so, it doesn’t really matter how that picture isĀ acquired.
But even if we try to make the art out of the collection, like Bayard did in his Self-Portrait with Plaster Casts, neither of two cameras (daguerreotypeĀ or calotype) offered a SLR type viewfinder; so, by Roberta’sĀ reasoning,Ā the look of photography was changed long ago.
It is true though that SLR cameras produce better quality results, but when we speak of art, quality doesn’t always equal aestheticĀ appeal.
