Landscape, Context, and Vloggers

I watch a fair few Vlog/YouTube videos of landscape photographers. I mostly stay with the film crowd as this is my interest, but I do watch the likes of Thomas Heaton and a few others who shoot digital. I can't (and probably shouldn't) watch too many of these. They become a bit repetitive, can become a substitute for actual photography, and negatively influence the ability to develop one's own style. 

I am also aware how powerful they are as selling tools. You watch a series of videos, maybe comment, and form a kind of relationship with the artist. You then see them taking photos and now have some attachment or back-story (in the antique and art world provenance) for the image which gives the image more personal meaning. 

Nothing wrong with all of this, in many ways this is a brilliant model for artists to promote and sell their work. It is not much different from galleries having artists in to talk to prospective clients. I also celebrate the lack of gatekeepers.

There is an aspect that I have started to find troubling. It works so well that someone can spout BS and then others come to believe the photo is great, 'a real cracker' yet in many cases the photos seem mediocre. I won't mention names and certainly everyone has different tastes. I have in mind one who goes on in great detail about what the composition is all about, long complicated explanations and then the image reveal and... meh, really? It often ends up being a picture of a tree in the forest. Somehow though we get drawn into the narrative of how the photo was taken and the personality or authority of the presenter.

Yet if you enter a gallery or sit down and flip through a book of photographs you have to make your own judgement. Nobody is explaining the composition, lighting, exposure etc. You are presented with the image, your brain takes it in, and you make some judgement about the feeling it evokes or if you like it or not. 

For me, being a photographer, I make some analysis of the image silently in my mind. What are the elements, the mood, the light, how was it manipulated? Sometimes I make little charts about the composition to help my understanding of why it evokes beauty in me.  

There is huge pressure on Vloggers to create new content each week and so they must produce new locations or themes. You often see one Vlogger do something different and then everyone else seems to post videos on a similar subject. I can also see that there are days when I cannot create one decent image let alone a great one. Therefore, it is not surprising we are accosted with videos that show mediocre compositions. Most are shooting high-end digital, so the exposure doesn't take a lot of work or time. I suppose this outcome is to be expected given the pressure to constantly refresh content.

I am not really sure of the purpose of this post. Perhaps something off my chest, a small complaint, an observation.