The Power of Originality in Photography //

I’ve just started watching Stranger Things series 3, and made me think about how nostalgia is often used to add emotive impact to contemporary art and media.

The trouble with nostalgia is that it’s selective in what it remembers and the response is subjective to the person experiencing it. In short, it’s not real. It’s merely a feeling — and one that will only resonate with the group of people for which those particular nostalgic triggers are relevant.

Stranger Things is good not because it relies on nostalgia, but because underneath, its narrative building blocks are solid. The characters have depth, the plot is engaging and the direction is captivating.

While it’s important to study the groundbreaking and iconic photographic work of the past, we won’t move forward by simply attempting to emulating a nostalgic aesthetic. We’ve already got Henri CartierBresson , Vivian Maier, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams. We don’t need them again.

Groundbreaking work from the past was groundbreaking because it broke ground. Because it was doing something new.

Photography that excites me these days is when I see something new. When I see approaches that I haven’t seen before. And I think this resonates with me so much because firstly, it expands my understanding of what photography can be secondly, it feels authentic.

Nostalgic style can be used to great effect to communicate a message, but style without substance creates work that fades from memory pretty quickly.

♫ Music
● "Automata" by DOS88 (   • DOS88 – Automata [Synthwave]  from ...  )
● “Soft Focus” by Birocratic (http://birocratic.lnk.to/allYL)


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