Wow! Look At That Photograph! Only I've Lost My "Wow” Response

Wow!  What a beautiful photograph!  But my image is so over edited, processed and saturated
that it doesn't look much like the scene I saw standing there that morning.  But these kinds of photos
seem to be all the rage today.  I'm not a fan. (click to enlarge)

Just some thoughts I've had repeatedly over the past few years.  I'm not sure how well I can express my feelings in words but I'll give it a try.

In a nutshell, I should have seen it coming but it crept up on me.  I now realize I’ve been numbed by the overwhelming number of amazing photographs that I see and I’m afraid I’ve lost that “wow” response when I see an excellent photograph.  It seems, there’s no longer any images I encounter that stun me with their beauty, technical quality or subject matter.  Seeing gorgeous landscapes or outstanding peak-of-action images used to be a once-in-a-great-while event but now I can see them daily almost everywhere images are displayed.  When I now see one of these amazing photographs, my feeling seems to be “that’s nice.” I look at the image for several seconds and move on.  I have almost no emotional response to them any longer.  That bothers me.

The kind of images I'm talking about now seeing regularly are just too perfect—perfect light; perfect contrast; perfect compositions, perfect moment, not a single thing in the image that mars the compositional perfection.  Three things are happening, in my opinion.  The digital cameras today allow us to achieve photographic perfection and make photographs that could not be made before, then the digital darkroom allows us to raise that perfection to a new level.  Finally, we can see these photos everywhere.  They are the rule now instead of the exception

I look at a lot of photographs.  Thousands each year.  I have looked at thousands of photographs each year since the early 1970s, always trying to learn from others.  These photographs are by hundreds if not thousands of different individual photographers.  I still look at them to continue to learn about photography.  Yes, even after 52 years of photographing, I still believe I can learn more about my art and craft each day.  I’m always striving to improve and better understand.

Here is the crux of why I now react (or fail to react) the way I do.  There is one particular aspect about the photographs I see that I've noticed as trending more and more over the past decade.  I'm seeing more and more photographs that are simply amazing in every way.  These photographs show nature, landscapes, bugs, birds, animals, the Cosmos, people, sports, cityscapes, water, all sorts of things, places and everything else you can think of in ways that have never been seen in the way we now see them.  I'm beginning to think there is nothing left to photograph that others haven't already photographed thousands of times in much better ways than can I.  Most of those images, as I mentioned, are simply amazing in their presentation.  Unfortunately, because of this, my photographic senses have been dulled by my overexposure of repeated perfection, I guess.  I've even thought about giving up photography because “it has all now been done and there is nothing left for me to contribute.”  Except there is, of course.

Most of the photographs to which I am referring, the AMAZING ones, have two attributes that photographs of yesteryear did not.  First, many have been created with cameras, lenses and camera features that have such extraordinary capabilities that the images could not have been created a few decades ago.  Second, many of these images have been so heavily manipulated, edited, changed, modified and refined in ways that was impossible prior to our digital darkrooms.  Many of these extraordinary 'looking' photographs show us scenes, nature, landscapes, sports, people, bugs, birds, bears, bison and the world in a fashion that is far from reality.  They possess the most stunning otherworldly colors, light and shadow falling in the same places, a dynamic range that challenges recognizable reality, atmospheric effects that seem from another planet and either everything in or out of focus far beyond what looks normal.

Here is another image I made.  Again, beautiful but no reflection (pun intended) to the reality
I saw standing on the bridge that morning.  I just have grown really tired of these kinds of images.
(click to enlarge)

Frankly, I don’t care for these surreal images.  But that is just me.  However, these kinds of photos have largely become the norm and we see them everywhere.  It seems as though if your photos don't have these characteristics, they are deemed subpar.

I have two conflicting thoughts about these kinds of images.  First, I've lost my zest for looking at photographs as too many that are considered "great" are really just over processed, highly saturated, composited, HDRed and manipulated to the point that colors, contrasts, areas of light and dark as well as perspectives just can't exist in reality.  In my opinion, they’ve strayed too far from reality.

On the other hand, why should we just make a Xerox® copy of what is before us?  Why do we need to make an exact copy of what we see when we stand at the Tunnel View in Yosemite National Park or in the Everglades in Florida?  I call those straight photographic record photographs, “I was here” photographs.  Yes, it is important to do so for journalistic, documentary, legal and other purposes.  In those cases, straight photography must reflect reality exactly.  But for many photographers their images are their 'art' and they make their final photograph to reflect what they saw in their mind's eye and how they felt when they pushed that shutter release button.  They have every right to jazz up their images and present them in any fashion they so please.

Second, as I have mentioned, I've lost my "wow" reaction when seeing new excellent photographs.  There are just so many out there that almost nothing amazes me any longer.  My reaction has been dulled by the shear numbers of images that we can see at will on the Internet, YouTube, Instagram and like electronic viewing platforms.  Yes, there are bad, okay, good and great photographs, but again, I've seen so many of them that they just don't give me that feeling that I am inspired to go out to a particular place and try to create something just as good.  It’s all been done!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that all this, in my opinion, is a product of the natural progression of photography in the electronic era along with desensitization and the evolution of photographic culture.  I now feel I'm missing something I had for decades.  I think I'm missing something about seeing photographs from places near and far of every subject and every genré that I had in the past.  Yes, I'm missing that sense of amazement I had that had that caused me fall head over heels in love with photography way back in 1971.  It’s a shame.  But it is what it is.  

Have I now lost my passion for photography?  Absolutory not!  I still love everything about photography as much as I did when it first grabbed me in 1971.  I love being out photographing, I love the gear I use, I still love looking at others' photographs (not the surreal ones as you now know), I love editing my images and in essence, I love "the chase."  Finding things to photograph and then making photographs that are pleasing to me.

As photographers, we need to adapt or die.  Evolve.  Roll with the punches.  Accept change.  If someone moves your cheese, you better find out where it is.  As I’ve told myself at least a thousand times over my lifetime, “get over it and get on with it.”

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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