"Oh, a selfie is when you take a picture of yourself. It's, uh, not really an artistic thing -- more of just ... a way of recording or sharing what you look like? Like if you did your makeup really well one morning? Like I said, in my world, most people had cheap cameras in their pockets. So we took and shared a lot of pictures."
At Bastien's other comment, though, Cam winced a little. They could hear the skepticism in his voice, and that was exactly the interpretation they'd tried to forestall: the idea that since the camera nominally created the image, the photographer wasn't actually an artist. "It's not an exact capture -- you can play with the focus and zoom of the lens, motion blur, exposure, etc. Sometimes you'd spend longer editing your photos after taking them than actually taking them. But there's also artistry in setting up a shot -- composition, rule of thirds, etc." They paused, trying to think of a convincing argument, something that would make Bastien understand their interest in photography. "It's a way of sharing what you see with the world -- finding a unique perspective or viewpoint and showing it to others. And like I said, not every photo ever taken is art. People take selfies just to show what they're wearing, they take photos of their lunch, they take photos of their dogs." Cam tapped their fingers against the wall behind them. "I mean, it kind of goes back to the definition of art, right? Like, any photo can be art, if the photographer creates it as art? But the focus needs to be on the visual effect of the photo or it's just ... a photo."
They were thinking of MoMA, performance art, the avant-garde -- which was maybe a little beyond Caido's stage of cultural development. But then, they didn't know what world this man might be from. Probably not Cam's future, though, if he didn't know what photography was.
"I'm from Earth," Cam said. "Georgia. In, uh, the early twenty-first century?"
At Bastien's other comment, though, Cam winced a little. They could hear the skepticism in his voice, and that was exactly the interpretation they'd tried to forestall: the idea that since the camera nominally created the image, the photographer wasn't actually an artist. "It's not an exact capture -- you can play with the focus and zoom of the lens, motion blur, exposure, etc. Sometimes you'd spend longer editing your photos after taking them than actually taking them. But there's also artistry in setting up a shot -- composition, rule of thirds, etc." They paused, trying to think of a convincing argument, something that would make Bastien understand their interest in photography. "It's a way of sharing what you see with the world -- finding a unique perspective or viewpoint and showing it to others. And like I said, not every photo ever taken is art. People take selfies just to show what they're wearing, they take photos of their lunch, they take photos of their dogs." Cam tapped their fingers against the wall behind them. "I mean, it kind of goes back to the definition of art, right? Like, any photo can be art, if the photographer creates it as art? But the focus needs to be on the visual effect of the photo or it's just ... a photo."
They were thinking of MoMA, performance art, the avant-garde -- which was maybe a little beyond Caido's stage of cultural development. But then, they didn't know what world this man might be from. Probably not Cam's future, though, if he didn't know what photography was.
"I'm from Earth," Cam said. "Georgia. In, uh, the early twenty-first century?"
cameron ?
"Cameras" by Ennev is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
