There were absolutely amazing photographs everywhere, on…
““There were absolutely amazing photographs everywhere, on everyone's Facebook page and everyone's iPhone and Instagram, just floating around in cyberspace for eternity. People took hundreds and thousands of digital pictures; one or two, even twenty or a hundred, were bound to be great. All anyone had to do was click through them all and post the ones they liked, deleting the rest. But using film meant you never knew what was going to be a good picture, let alone a great one, until you were standing there looking at a contact sheet with a magnifying glass and deciding which to print. Maybe nobody cared anymore, but then again, writers probably felt the same way when word processors were invented. Anyone with a story and a keyboard could write their memoir now, write the great American novel, or tweet a 140-character trope that gets retweeted and it read by hundreds of people every hour of every day.””
About This Quote
This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.
Digital images flood platforms, making selection trivial; analog required deliberate choice, mirroring how technology reshapes creative standards.
In simple terms: Too many pictures make it hard to value any.
Embrace curation over quantity.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- photography
- social media curation
- writing
- publishing
Key Concepts
Questions to Reflect On
- How does endless choice affect artistic standards?
- Can scarcity improve value?
Quantity can dilute appreciation of quality.