Self belief and image fatigue

If you take any machine whether a digital point and shoot or a large format film camera, a photographers aim would be to produce the best of the capability of the machine, then preserve the result in the context of the tool that made it. The realization that the cheaper range of consumer digitals can, in fact, produce powerful results seems to come only after someone famous or successful suddenly shows this to be so (I'm thinking of Alec Majoli). Some photographer's self belief appears to be built upon their icon's self belief (the whole concept behind celebrity advertising, right). Let's face it, though the digitals may be seem far more convenient to use, that perfect picture, distinct from that perfect file, won't be much easier to make.

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On another topic. Image fatigue is something I suffer from. I'm so tired of exposing my eyes to pictures. It's an addictive urge, almost a masochistic need to quench this desire. I remember in university, pouring over just about every photobook that existed on the shelf, amassing all those images in one huge picture library in my mind. The result has been a growing lack of belief in photography and especially art. So in a way I understand how someone might say, there has been nothing important since Arbus. For me it's Cartier Bresson (Arbus is just too uncomfortable), not because I really think there has been nothing since, its just that there's far too much good, and bad, photography that my line of sight is obscured.

Submitted by Philip Cartland on 26 November 2006 - 1:37pm.