It’s a serious talent to make a 4×6 piece of photography interesting. According to a BHC study, 80% of photographs are uninteresting to 95% of people who live in 90% of the lower 48. There are several explanations for this, most of which you should look at with a weary eye. The Native Americans will tell you one thing, baristas will tell you another, and carnies will tell you yet another. None of which are true. There is only one truth, that which is about to be expelled from my finger tips.
The current make up of photographs can be understood by the graph to the right.
There are a handful of professional photographers making beautiful photographs; the kind you look at and say, “This photograph reminds me of the time I fell in the pond at grandma’s house in the fourth grade and accidentally swallowed a small-to-medium sized fish that came out in my poo three days later. I can smell it.”
Then there are three fistfuls of amateur photographers who think they are professional, but aren’t because they aren’t that good. They took one photography course in high school and love photographing autumn days in black and white which makes no sense because the point of taking photographs in autumn is to capture the color of the leaves in the trees. These photographers bring the professionals down and minimize their slice of the pie.
Next we have the largest group — the serial shooters. They go to the beach or to parties or to beach parties with their Nikon CoolPix camera that they bought because Ashton is totally cute or their Sony Cybershot camera they bought because Sony used to make a sweet Walkman back in the day and they trust their quality. They shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot like an overeager eight year old with a brand new cap gun that their mom bought them from the Pirates of the Caribbean shop at Disney World. 341 of their 465 photographs are only interesting to them because they are in them. 123 of their 465 photographs are either accidental pictures of carpets or butts or shoulders, random photographs taken by strangers, or include no one that they know. These 123 photographs are useless and will never make it onto Facebook. And one in 465 photographs is this photograph, the one worth keeping. It will most likely be thrown in with the 123 photographs that are deemed useless.
And then we have the Polaroids, all of which are this photograph. Polaroids are gold. Everything looks better as a Polaroid. No matter what the subject. No matter what the setting. No matter what the time period. Polaroids make everything interesting.
Proof:
*I have no photographic authority and probably shouldn’t be making any claims pertaining to photography. Believe the baristas.
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