When is a piece of creative work the work of a man and when does it just become faceless. Just something that’s ‘out there’, like lots of other stuff that’s ‘out there’?
The point I am making is that the desires of the creator should be greater than the technology available to achieve them. There comes a time when the available technology gets so close to the imagination and creativity of the creator that in the end it overtakes him and then the game changes. Before this ‘game change’, the results were created from the artist’s own sweat, blood and effort and they were applauded as unique to him.
After the ‘game change’, a situation occurs which allows the less aware and less creative photographer to press one of 187 buttons on a pre-set computer programme, and if lucky, something impressive or arresting may come out of it. It won’t be his and it certainly won’t advertise the mountain of rubbish that was thrown on the cutting room floor previously.
At this moment, it is the machinery that drives the creativity rather than the creativity driving the machinery. That is when the real work stops and is one reason why so much ‘work’ today looks so predictable.