Birds, planes, landscapes, and… the point of taking photos

What's ultimately the point? People!

It was trawling through my mother‘s 15,000 printed photographs a few years ago, after her death, that made me think about what a photo is and what it’s for. Alongside this, there are photographs of birds and planes (in my case) and general landscapes/scenes shot by others and submitted to social groups, and it has all made me think again about the point of taking a photo.

For example, you’re in front of a robin in your garden. You use your skill and judgement and a good camera phone or camera to take a photograph of the robin, you crop in and zoom in, and you end up with a nice photograph of… a robin. Is this picture of a robin different from the literally tens of millions of other photographs of robins taken by other people in the past, in printed form and on the Internet? Effectively, it’s not. 

Take planes, a passion of mine. An Airbus A380 is overhead, heading for (Heathrow), about a mile up. I use the lovely 8x telephoto in my high-end iPhone to take a photograph of it, after which I have a photograph of the (mainly) bottom of an A380, very similar to the 101 other photographs of bottoms of an A380s that I’ve taken in the past. What about landscapes and scenes? You snap a picture of, say, a building at a National Trust Site, or of a famous cove on the coast, the curve of the bay, the sea, etc. You snap the scene and what have you got at the end of all of this? The same photo as taken by just about every other person who visits that spot. Again, similar, if not identical to millions of other photographs.

So... what on earth is the point of it all? OK, so there's the hobbyist aspect and the satisfaction of getting a nice shot and saying "yes, I was there, I took the shot" and being pleased with it for yourself, and that’s fine. But I put it to you, I contend, that photographs only really come alive, they only really matter, when there’s some personal interest. Now this might just be a pet, a dog, for example, or more likely it’s a human being. A family member or a friend taken in that spot to show that they were there with you and this is a memory which you can solidify because it’s got a real human being in it. 

A human being who has a particular age and a particular appearance or health status. Otherwise, that scene snap could’ve been taken any time in the last 100 years - but putting Mum or Dad or Uncle David etc. in their mid 50s, for example, places a date and a time and a memory that you were there with them. Even more, grabbing a selfie with those people with the item or building or coastline in the background is even more valuable because it has you in it as well and again it’s a memory with human presence and interest.

I know, I know, 'selfies' are demeaned as something for generation Z but I think they can be very useful. I’ve got some wonderful selfie photographs of myself and my wife and friends in all sorts of places in the world and they are the core, the central part of my memories of those trips, those holidays, those missions.

So, as I found out when sorting out my mother‘s (approximately 15,000) printed photographs after her death, the only ones which were worth keeping (and which didn't get thrown in the skip) were with ones with people and which were clearly identifiable/labelled, representing actual memories either of hers or of myself when younger. Likewise, I contend that the photographs which you will prize most, the ones which you add as a 'favourite' in your phone's gallery application, for example, the ones you share to others, the ones you print out and frame, will be shots that have people and pets and something personal to you within their contents. 

By all means take wonderful shots of flowers and animals and landscapes for your own personal pleasure but ultimately they will only mean something to you and then mainly in terms of pride in the photographic process. Future generations or other family members will instantly gravitate to photographs with people or pets in.

What is a photo, anyway?

And all of this is even more emphasised in our current AI world in which one can say to Gemini or ChatGPT:

"I’d like to be in front of the Eiffel Tower on the north side, taking a photograph of the Tower on a spring day with the sun in the South East quadrant of the sky, with an ice cream seller somewhere in the foreground and people milling around the base of the Tower"...

... and then let the AI do its work. A few seconds later, you will get your scene as if you had travelled to France and as if you were in front of the Eiffel Tower on that wonderful day with these specific conditions and taking that photograph.

Is this a real photograph? Obviously not, but it’s arguably as good as, making me again say what is an actual photo? There was talk, perhaps a thought experiment, a few years ago, of a virtual camera - literally a cheap plastic box with a button and an accelerometer and GPS chip, plus connectivity - but no actual optics or camera. The idea would be that you stand in a particular spot and press the button. For example, it knows you’re in front of the House Of Parliament by the river Thames. You press the button as if you’re taking a physical optical shot and the device knows which direction you’re facing, it knows your position, it knows what what landmark you are potentially photographing and it produces the image for you from an amalgam of the other tens of thousands of photographs taken from that same spot by other people and then given an extra AI layer of sheen and polish and perfection on top, all with perfect lighting. And the result may well be a better photograph and far better than the shot you’ve taken yourself with your camera phone on that cloudy day!

Perhaps that's going too far, of course. But I've used AI to dramatically improve old shots of people in my family from the 1920s and 1930s - again, note the word 'people' again. The results are incredible. I had a faded, terribly low resolution shot of my great grandfather in monochrome, but I wanted something much clearer for a booklet I was writing in his memory. The original 'photo' is below. And below that is the AI version:

Is this still a photo? Or the fevered imagination of an algorithm? A bit of both, but the differences and improvements ar certainly striking. As someone working back through my family's history and looking at the people (again), this type of focus is becoming more and more relevant!

Thoughts welcome anyway! Every time I hear a podcast or radio show try to answer the question 'What is a photo?', the discussion always goes on for ages and is inconclusive. 

In summary...

Keep snapping out there, but don't get too hung up on photo processing or AI and remember to keep things personal - put human beings in your shots to keep things relevant for the generations who will come after you!