The top three questions I anticipate people will ask me about my thesis in the future are:
1. What is the actual problem that the work is attempting to solve?
The Problem: We've taken the difficulty of use, and the potential for failure out of our products because we see these qualities as inconveniences. In Western societies, we disassociate the value in learning about how things in our environment work from the standard subjects in education. While becoming less obtrusive, our digital tools are not teaching us the basic problem solving skills that we need to use in our daily lives.
Everything around us is being dematerialized (or digitized), and because of this, our mental models for how the world works are drastically changing. Imagine that you have only used a smart phone camera to take pictures - you've never seen a DSLR or a 35mm camera. You might think that photography works by opening an app and tapping a screen to make perfect exposures. In a way, this is an absurd thought. But if you think about what that world would be like, the one without physical cameras, it would make sense.
As a metaphor, we might ask, why do students still need to know how to spell when we have spellcheck? Or why do they need to know simple math when they have a calculators? Its because these are the elementary building blocks behind language and problem solving. The students shouldn't be allowed to use the tools until they have an understanding of what the tools are being used to solve for. Lucid is making the argument that, just because photography is not universally taught in schools, it doesn't mean that students should just be allowed to skip to digital photography and camera phones before understanding the elementary principles behind how a lens works - or how a camera works.
If we think about cameras in terms of ease of use, then analog cameras are a pain in the ass. You have to pay attention to many different variables when lining up a shot. You might want the picture to be in focus, so you need to adjust the lens based upon your distance to subject. At the same time, the light needs to be measured in order to achieve a proper exposure, and from this measurement, the aperture, or opening of the lens, has to be synched with the shutter speed. All of these variables change depending on how sensitive the film is to light. Each part of the camera system is its own small system, with different functions, that add up to the whole.
Experimenting with an analog camera is all about problem solving. When I first started shooting photos, most of my roll would be underexposed, or overexposed. These poorly executed photographs were the feedback that taught me the subtle quirks of using my particular camera. It takes time to learn new skills, and in becoming better at them, we sometimes need to experience difficulties.
2. Why would any photographer want to use your cameras?
You would build them through my proposed digital platform, and have a sense of ownership over the design. It would take unique pictures in a way that you've designed into the function of the camera.
3. Isn't digital photography just a natural evolution of the technology, like how Adobe Illustrator is to drawing?
Yes, mobile/digital is the contemporary instantiation of photography. However, I would argue that while anyone could pick up a digital camera to shoot photos, or to use Illustrator to make a drawing, in order to make the type of images that express your intent, these tools still requires a basic understanding of the fundamentals behind composition, content, color, intent…etc.
baratheonpilled
discoholicmusic
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
andulkaphoto