What is the role of photography in our society?  Does it even have one?  Once upon a time the world was unknown.  Most people never travelled further than their village or their state.  In this world the role of photography was documentary; to photograph all the things people had never seen or didn’t know they even existed.  With the maturation of technology the world began to shrink.  We now live in a world where anyone can go on the internet and see anything and everything; there is very little mystery left.  So what is the role of photography in this world?

I think many view it in a commercial fashion.  Photography is the ability to take beautiful photos; to alter reality.  When people think of photography most think of the altered / photoshop photos they see on Instagram.  But this is not photography, this is retouching.

Ironically, the role of photography has reverted back to its original role of truth telling and reality.  We have strived so far from the truth of beauty, what with photoshop and filters, that the role of photography has become to remind us what women really look like / what true beauty is.

But if the role of photography is naked honesty that removes the photographer from the process.  If you want to tell the “Truth”, you then need to remove the editor / the author- and that is what a photographer is.  If you want to tell the “Truth” you should mount your camera on a tripod, set it to take photos at random times, and upload those photos directly to social media– eliminate the editor as much as possible.

So what then become of the photographer?