Monday, June 28, 2010

#166-Photography/Photoshoots

Another Stephany Miralez recommended Post:

I once heard a preacher preach about how S-E-Xual magazine covers were getting at the party store. They recounted at how actresses are frequently seen in the nude with a prop covering the explicit parts of the body in such magazines as Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Better Homes and Garden, etc..... They lamented how difficult it must be for our generation of Apostolics to grow up in such a world.

I thought to myself, "It's not their fault. It's ours! We can't blame the magazines for going to such extremes. We are the ones who forced the issue!"

And here's what I mean....before everyone could illegally download a photoshop editor, the only people who were able to make pictures look sweet were the magazine companies. And now that we have acquired such technology, the magazine editors need to find a whole other angle to differentiate themselves: Half Nudity!

But alas, the horror of technology is that its cost gets lower and lower, to the point that the peasants can get their paws on piece of technology as long as you give it enough time.

Cameras are cheaper. Photoshop editors are more frequent. And this bodes well for the Apostolic.

With that comes not only an apostolic love for photography, but also a weird infatuation for photoshoots.

Photoshoots...like senior picture photo shoots.

Except people are narcissistic enough to get 2-3 senior picture photo shoots a year.

Even when they are grown up.

Which leads the grown ups to still want to play dress up.

Which causes all the facebook spies to come to out and scour the photo shoot dress ups for any sign of make up.

Narcissism is at an all-time high in my generation, and photo shoots complement this trend very well. It makes people believe that they are GQ models.

Also, another consequence of the apostolic infatuation with photography is that the distinction between a professional and amateur photographer is greatly muddled. Suddenly the veil has been lifted about the "professionalism of photography," as all that really meant was the professional photographer had bought a 2000 dollar camera and knew how to adjust the lens' appropriately. This is the great leveling that postmodernism has spoken of for years, which the ministers who report from on high fear deeply.

Now all one needs to do to separate themselves from the pack of countless amateur photographers on Facebook is buy a 500 dollar camera instead of a 200 dollar camera.

Do you remember the trend a few years back where suddenly everyone wanted to be an interior designer because of the onslaught of TV shows dealing with the subject? Well now everyone wants to be a photographer because of the onslaught of apostolic photoshoots on facebook....

In fact 40% of Apostolics in high school are considering majoring in Photography.

This leads to my prediction that the 40% of Apostolics in high school considering majoring in photography, become hopelessly unemployed 10 years from now as the demand for a good photographer is absolutely zero as everyone's eight year old nephew will know how to take pictures from a weird angle, with odd lighting, and then apply a slight percentage of sepia in the photoeditor over the photo.

And for goodness sake, what about the music Bands?

Remember on myspace, how it was only bands that could find the good myspace photographers to do photoshoots that looked really sweet?

Well they lost that market with all the facebook photoshoots....

The only thing bands have left, that is not being done by everyone else, is the use of garageband on Macs. And don't worry it won't be long until that is gone....

But if I may add one thing to the recent debacle of people dressing like clowns but trying to look serious and then taking many pictures of it:

The Bible teaches us to love our neighbor as ourself. Therefore, as a prelude to loving our neighbor we must first love ourselves. I just wonder if we are loving the wrong things about ourselves?

The term Narcissist gets its name from the Greek myth about Narcissus, the son of a god who was cursed to be in love with himself. One day he saw his reflection in a pond and was so infatuated with his looks that he kept on staring and staring at himself, and did so until the day he died.


Saints and peers alike, look now at your facebooks, what do you see? Is it a shrine of yourself that you stare at with glee?

5 comments:

  1. I'm always amazed to see you putting into words what I've thought and not said most of my life. Nailed it again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with you the narcissism is at an all time high.

    Twitter and Facebook, in my opinion has given people the ability to stretch the truth about who they truly are in an effort to make themselves seem more appealing to their peers/friends/family/whoever.

    I've seen people's 'status updates' that are just so far from genuine truth that it has honestly caused me to delete and block certain people.

    Good post. Sorry I got off the initial topic of photos.

    ReplyDelete
  3. As the famed philosopher, Stewie, once said "Every hot girl that can aim a camera thinks she’s a photographer. Ooo, you took a black and white picture of a lawn chair and it’s shadow and developed it at Save-On. You must be so brooding and deep.”

    My favorite part of this blog is something Joel and I have discussed: grown men dressing like clowns and taking pictures of themselves. It's no secret that there's a handful of guys in this movement that we can't stand, for a number of reasons, but this is one of them. I saw a photoshoot of two of them, supposedly hetero, wearing matching lime green and seersucker, taking pictures of themselves in a wheat field. Dis.Gus.Ting.
    Narcissism, vanity and egotism are at an all time high right now. So much so that I recently saw someone had taken a picture of one of the gentlemen, edited it to look like the cover of the Pentecostal Herald, littered with his corny quotes and lingo. I like to think I'm over this stuff, but as the great Michael Corleone once said "Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in!"
    It's entertaining, but saddening at the same time. It's more entertaining though. I look at pity with the 30 something Men Of A Certain Age taking the same kind of pics of themselves that 14 year old girls do, wearing their cute little bowties, vests, and moose knuckle pants. They're insecure, at the root of things, and they have to do this to prove something to themselves. Perhaps they're over compensating for a poor childhood or something, I don't really know. I just feel bad for them.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Among the many talents God graced me with is extraordinary beauty. I would be a slothful servant if I didn't make sure I shared this gift with the world.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Apostolic holiness is kinda like a baloon being squeezed... we may not watch TV but our worldliness *pops out* in our obsession with dressing up and displaying this flesh. Jesus Christ hath no form nor comliness, he wasnt a good looking guy and yet He was everything He was God.

    ReplyDelete