On the Web: September 2005 Archives
The digital revolution is implicitly democratic, levelling the playing field and blurring the line between amateur and professional. The cheapest camera on the market advises, questions, scolds, adjusts, corrects. The little electronic genie within tells us when we can do what we want, and when we can't. It makes a mockery of the expert. ("Shoot, don't think," is the clever, and apt, Sony slogan.)
From a review of reGeneration. I referenced that Sony slogan some time ago, but photography's democratizing effect took hold long before the digital revolution arrived. Digital only makes it more so. Forward Retreat posts a classic Sontag quote on this topic today in regard to the ongoing catasrophe in New Orleans.
UPDATE: More info on reGeneration from the Musée de l'Elysée exhibition in Lausanne, Switz., plus Photo Opera, a site about Swiss photography. Thanks, Andrew.
