Hi Matthew. It is good to get people’s different point of view and thanks for taking the trouble to write.
I have looked at some of the sites you mention and there’s plenty of images there to enjoy.
There is certainly a WOW factor in a lot of them too.
However, if you look at most of them they are too perfect, the colours too rich. They are larger than life….they are works of graphic art.
That’s fine too because it is the way a lot of people are using the digital world these day.
It is just my opinion but they are not true photographs.
If you want to appreciate and learn about photography, can I suggest you look at the masters, current and past…..Cartier-Bresson, Steve McCurry, Sebastio Salgardo, Martin Munkacsi Alfred Stieglitz, Brassai and Ansell Adams (some of my favorities)….but there are many more.
Study their work, read about their lives and vision, learn their techniques of composition. In most cases they did not have the advantage of the digital cameras and the sophisticated computer programs we have today but their work was exceptional. It is a great journey and very enlightening.
That’s the great thing about the internet today, there is so much to access.
All the best
Peter

Thanks for the comment Dave. I agree that sometimes photographs, whether they be family or holiday snaps are great memories.
People have been doing it for more than a century and it is often fascinating to look at these old photos and see the way things were back then, even if you have no association with the people in the picture.
I was merely making an observation, probably badly, that the people I was referring to at the Lourve were not appreciating the works on the walls and that the photos they had taken of them wouldn’t mean much when they got home. However in a positive way they had all made the effort to visit this wonderful place and taken away something of its magic.
Cheers
Peter

This post reminded of a very similar instance of my own. I was photographing Aira Force – a waterfall in the Lake District, UK – there is a small bridge to a very small viewing platform and I wanted to use a Big Stopper to photograph the fall (of course) so had my camera on a tripod with cable release etc. Each frame took upwards of 8 minutes, the rain was pretty heavy and people came and went by the coach load, I guess maybe a hundred or more in the hour or so that I was there making a single frame. Most people came to the platform looked for only the briefest of moments took their obligatory snap and moved on all literally within a minute in most cases, a very few lingered for nearly two or even three minutes! However, I don’t agree with your implication that this is a bad thing – in times gone by those undoubtedly photographically poor snapshots would simply not have been taken, these would have been cameraless people. At least now they have there snapshot to remember the power of the Aira Force. These snaps will never see the see the printed light of day since, although there are many more snaps being taken, very very few are ever actually printed!

Great blog btw

Dave

The digital revolution has enabled many access to good quality gear that they would have otherwise not been able to access. Many photos remain ho-hum, but I constantly see images that blow my mind.