There’s this study that I vaguely remembered done by a researcher by the name of Nathan DeWall:
This is part of what I was getting at. DeWall found that pop lyrics reference the self far more often than they used to.
The last song to be recorded by The Beatles, I Me Mine was written by George Harrison about revelations regarding the ego discovered through LSD use. “Suddenly I looked around and everything I could see was relative to my ego… It drove me crackers.” - from beatlesbible.com
4 Likes
Indeed it is. I’ll take my reliable, simple, easy-to-use, easy-to-adapt, easy-to-maintain, built-like-a-tank $20, 1980s, 28mm Kalashnicov over an over-priced, over complicated, over-rated, flimsy, modern-day wannabe-of-an-M16 any day of the week. 
You live in that time already. Maybe it’s due to the environment but I would argue the grand majority of people do not go to restaurants merely to take pictures for social media or to increase their social status.
Incidentally where do we draw the line? “Going to a restaurant to enjoy a meal” is itself another thing we invented for ourselves and as much a simulacra as
“going to a restaurant and taking a picture of the food for instagram”.
4 Likes
These kind of discussions always remind me of Richard Feynman and bricks. Maybe the concept of simulacra is not that useful?
I usually go to restaurants to talk to people I like over a meal. The meal is kind of accidental and is just a prop that promotes a friendly atmosphere — if we are not hungry, a walk would do as well. Taking a photo of the food would be a rude gesture on my part, as it would imply that the food is the interesting thing there, so I never do it. (Yes, fine dining is totally wasted on me, and I usually avoid it if I can).
3 Likes
Yes, I agree. I only used it since it was already used back there to speak of the same thing. In this case I very much agree with Chomsky on french intellectuals of that era.
1 Like
Years ago, when Cracked.com was the go-to site for pop culture observations, I used to be an avid listener of their (long-since shuttered) podcast. Especially the episodes featuring the two main guys, editor-in-chief Jack O’Brien and executive editor Jason “David Wong” Pargin (whose debut novel “John Dies at the End” is still the single best thing to ever have come out of the internet imho).
Even though (or maybe precisely because) as Americans, their intellectual attitude is fairly positivist and they don’t speak the language of Continental Philosophy, they were able to discuss developments in pop culture along their own lines, departing from what they would have considered academic discourse, but often inadvertently landed quite closely to observations that were also made by Continental philosophers (especially French philosophers, including Jean Baudrillard).
They can probably explain it better than I ever could. Their episode (from 2016) about cultural narcissism is still online as of right now. If you have the time, I strongly recommend listening to it. Their conversation is decidedly non-academic, but also not casual. It’s a well-prepared and imho quite smart talk about the topic.
One example they discuss is from the film “My Dinner With Andre”, where one of the two guys relays an epiphany he once had while watching TV. There was an interview with a terrorist, and it struck him how that terrorist was dressed just like a terrorist. Pargin then goes to another example, of biker gangs, whose ostensible attitude is “We totally don’t care what anyone thinks about us!” – but who then go on to get up every day and carefully dress exactly like bikers, basically wearing a uniform. Jean-Paul Sartre described a similar thing in his “Being and Nothingness”, of a waiter play-acting at being a waiter.
And in a similar vein, even a vacation is not a vacation anymore, it’s a photo opportunity for the greatest hits reel of one’s life, to be featured on Instagram (or formerly Facebook). Now you or I may claim to be exceptions, but the point still stands. We do not live in a real world anymore. Everything is just an empty sign that doesn’t even stand for itself.
Yeah I thought about bringing up Chomsky as a typical example of the limits of positivism when discussing culture. Chomsky has strong cultural limitations. Just think of his debate with Foucault back in the day. He simply couldn’t even understand anything Foucault was getting at. And still, those things cannot be ignored or wished away, ever. Positivism is far too limited to explain human societal interaction.
1 Like
Well, this is not very philosophical but…
I discovered Neat Image. And further searching revealed that it has been mentioned on this forum before.
Taking my Tamron zoom to a concert, I had some f2.8 pics and upped the ISO to 3200. I was a bit disappointed with DT’s denoising of those: the camera certainly does a better job. However, on a very quick test of a) undenoised-DT plus NI and b) denoised-DT plus NI pleased my most with the latter.
Proprietary, non-free software. Not very high cost, though. And if one does not require output above 8-bit jpeg, the free demo is satisfactory.
On the alimentary tract, I’d rather eat the food while it is hot/fresh than photograph it. But then, I am not a photograph-everything man (would be a better photographer if I was!) and live most of life without a camera between me and it. Yes, I live in the real world! Although partly because of… laziness! lol.
I remember watching My Dinner with Andre quite a few years ago. (ok, decades). I recall that my reaction was that i didn’t enjoy it a great deal, but was pleased someone had made a film like that.
I wonder how much the instagram craze influenced food presentation, placing a priority on presentation rather than taste? It can’t be blamed for all of that: nouveau cuisine, I think, predated the internet, let alone Instagram and the mobile phone camera.
Yes, I love fine dining. The food and its flavours and presentation are major reasons to be there. On a day to day basis I’m also very fond of what us Brits call a Greasy Spoon cafe. And they are a lot cheaper 
4 Likes
I remember an epiphany I had some years ago, but I cannot pinpoint when. It was still in the film SLR days, I think. Anyway, I was on vacation and I was lugging around my camera, a couple of lenses, and a bag of camera stuff. I was taking pictures of basically everything. And it dawned on me that I had become a slave to my camera and that I was essentially missing my vacation.
So, now days, I might see something interesting and tell myself either that I need to go get my camera or that I wish my camera was available, but I don’t carry a camera around full time trying to shoot everything interesting that I see. I get fewer photos, but I enjoy life more.
6 Likes
He may not be the only one
It might have been the weed which the Dutch students paid Foucault as compensation for his appearance. Foucault and his entourage called it “the Chomsky weed” back in Paris 
This is exactly why everyone hates going anywhere with me — it’s even worse when doing street photography.
1 Like
I’m very late to this thread but was just wondering if a beer was ever shared between you guys in “meatspace”? One of the worst words I’ve ever seen paired with the word “lovely”! 
1 Like
Not to my knowledge. We’re pretty widely dispersed on the globe, as far as I know.
I just noticed this post. I feel LR is a great program for a photographer who just wants to move a few sliders around and get an acceptable image for the client with very little fuss. Its ease is its beauty. But the truth of the matter for me is I own LR6 and am totally bored with it as a program. I am a dedicated darktable user. To me LR is a photographers tool who wants quick and easy results and a good cataloguing system. Great for a studio or wedding photographer who wants to spend very little time at a computer.
But on the other hand darktable is a tool for artists. Those photographers who get pleasure out editing their images on computer to achieve the look they imagined when they picked up the camera are given so many great options in darktable. I would never go back to LR as it simply bores me.
Darktable can also be very quick to use once you master it. The speed of processing would definitely rival and compare well to the speed of editing in LR. I also prefer the versatile masking system in darktable over other FOSS software or LR’s limited localised masking options.
In the end use which ever program gives you the greatest pleasure and ability to enjoy your photography. But I will save my subscription dollars for Netflix.
1 Like
Sorry, but that’s just gate-keeping.
I agree with your sentiment in general. But whether it’s art depends on the artist, not their tools.
2 Likes
Hah. I am not an artist, but I consider post-processing images on a computer the most tedious part of photography (regardless of the program I use and how great or easy it is). All other aspects are more interesting, including lens cleaning.
I spend to much time at the computer already as part of my job, and having to use a computer for my hobbies too just sucks the joy out of them. I have finally arrived at a workflow with Darktable that minimizes screentime. The fewer sliders I have to touch, the better.
3 Likes
I started teaching a camera class last night and pointed out the merits of RAW files in terms of editing images. However, I then said to the students that not all photographers should shoot in RAW. If sitting at a computer editing images kills your passion for photography then they maybe they would be happiest shooting JPG images that are ready to go. In fairness Canon, Nikon and all manufacturers have invested a lot of effort in getting great JPGs out of their cameras.
This comment is not personally aimed at you or anyone. I am just agreeing that processing images for some people is not fun. I started my photography in the darkroom and I love the process of editing images. I also love the range of options given in DT to achieve the look I desire.
2 Likes
You are setting up a false dichotomy here.
The fact the someone wants to postprocess images quickly, at least in the first pass, does not mean that they don’t want to postprocess at all, especially when it comes to options that are not needed all the time, but when they are required they really add to the image (like D&S, which I use sparingly after the initial fascination).
There is a whole spectrum of workflows between spending a lot of time on an image and just cropping your JPEGs. Darktable (and other FOSS programs) can be made to work for everyone on this spectrum. With sigmoid, especially the latest version, it is now especially easy to get images that rival OOC JPEGs (in any particular style). Other programs like RawTherapee and ART also offer super-quick RAW workflows.
But there are still photographers that will only want to go half way in the end. A lot of “old” pros never did their darkroom work and always delegated it to someone else. Of course we can then argue who is responsible for the end result, only the photographer or him and his darkroom worker?
That said, LR or even Lightroom mobile can help you achieve results so quickly, modern photographers should learn how to do it even if they dislike it.