Thoughts on photoshop and special effects.

Although the advances we have made in photography and films are incredible, it saddens me when I think of the fact that I can no longer trust an image I see or a video I watch.

I may not understand photoshop, but there are so many people who, with a few clicks, can completely transform a picture. How can I trust anything I see? How am I to know that nothing in the photograph was edited? Photoshop is essentially a cheap imitation of the magic that a master photographer can work in a darkroom and with a camera. The results can be beautiful, but I will always have the haunting knowledge that it's fake.

It's really frustrating when you spend days, weeks, perfecting a photo, and someone else can do the whole process digitally in a couple hours. It can take multiple rolls of film to get that perfect shot, and then the film may get ruined while you're developing it. You may spend an enormous amount of time testing times and filters and burning and dodging and layering and any other little trick, and when you finally get it right, you can still end up with water or chemical spots. And if everything goes well, and it dries right, you have an enormous feeling of satisfaction. YOU made it happen. With photoshop, yes, there is satisfaction after making a particularly amazing transformation, but really, anyone can do it. There are really simple ways to get the effect of a vintage polaroid or a lensbaby without a polaroid camera or lensbaby. And, if I spend my money and time creating the perfect TTV apparatus and getting the perfect cameras for it, how ticked do you think I'd be when I find people making fake ones with downloaded templates who are passing them off as "real art"?

I don't mean to say it isn't amazing. The things people can do these days with technology astounds me. But please, can we return to a time that still is amazed at plain film cameras, and people don't get bored during movies without visual effects? And will I ever again be able to look at a photograph and not have to wonder if any of it hasn't been altered with some program?