Following a deep dive into online reviews of popular natural attractions, photographer Paul Hempstead reflects on whether technology, mass tourism, and influencer culture has eroded our connection with the natural world.
https://atmos.earth/popular-natural-attractions-and-the-nature-of-critique/
You can not take a photograph of a living Forest.
And why I don't carry a camera.
One can reproduce a tiny bit of it, for 1/60 of a second. But that's not the Forest.
The only media that comes close, is poetry.
“What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.”
― Roland Barthes
@corlin Perhaps for the photographer it can trigger memories and feelings, however to everyone else, it's just a picture.
Yet.
I still have those memories, regardless of a photo.
@corlin @Tacitus_Kilgore Yet still have a moment in time for everyone to see the climate changes as the occur over time. It is a historical snapshot. "A picture is worth a thousand a words"...there's probably some reason for this saying.
It is when one confuses, the memory, or the photo of a thing with the experience of a thing. This is the category error that pushes nature out of the imagination, and into an object that we can mistakenly demand dominion over.
@corlin @Tacitus_Kilgore There's no wrong/right about seeing the entire picture or the small details. iNaturalist app is a good example of seeing the small details (individual pictures of living things throughout the world) providing invaluable information of flora/fauna in specific areas as well as inferring ecosystem health as a whole. Informing us of new & what once were thought 2 be extinct organisms. Focusing on specific stars provides insight into our own sun's health & eventual surmise.
Point.
“‘Without constructs, you will unravel few mysteries. Without knowledge of the mysteries, your constructs will fail."
Perhaps.
Like looking through a telescope at one small patch of the sky, then comparing that with one taken later. But that is NOT "the stars", nor even the sky. Useful as it is, it is not the thing. It is barely a representation of a thing.
@Victor At the very least, I believe that we all can agree that many people are inspired by many things and we must not poopoo on imagination and creativity. @corlin