Lumière

Yesterday, while discussing The Digital Age & the plummeting value of Hasselblad equipment, my friend, Ed, told me, “I need to sell my Polaroid camera before they discontinue Polaroid.” Today, the front-page of the business section proclaimed the death of Polaroid. That kind of foresight would be handy in, say, traffic situations or politics but is of no value in the current world of photography. Things are changing too quickly!

But it’s not good enough. Have we been so desensitized by the glut of images that, deep down inside, we really don’t care anymore? Like all things American, we just don’t know when to stop. We just do it, mindlessly, constantly. It’s good enough because it’s cheap and fast and it’s all too much and most images are mediocre anyway. We all take the same pictures; the only question is who’s going to print it with the most saturation. Anyone wanting to keep up with the pace of production these days had better get a digital camera with as many frames-per-second as they can afford. Output is everything. Craft, introspection, and purpose are obsolete. We will be content if Photoshop CS4 has a “Polaroid” filter. It’s the future, Buck Rodgers, and it’s good enough.