“The ‘machine-gun’ approach to photography – by which many negatives are made with the hope that one will be good – is fatal to serious results.”

— Ansel Adams

Last summer, my family and I visited Washington D.C., and while at the National Zoo, witnessed the death of photography in action. A group of three young men wielding DSLRs were snapping away at various animals of interest. With horror, I watched as the youngest would peel off a frame, then with a quick slapping motion, beat the pop-up flash into submission, obviously annoyed that the camera was second-guessing him in trying to right the wrong he was about to make.

There’s an app for that. It’s called PROGRAM mode, moron.

Sorry.

I guess when you have a digital camera, and a really large memory card, you can afford to shoot this way. The problem is, you don’t learn anything about photography in the process. And that knowledge makes all the difference. So, keep snapping away junior. I can take heart in knowing your work will be no threat to mine.

To be fair, he’s a victim of the new digital age. The age in which we have songs we didn’t even know we had on our iPods. Because digital media and the automation it affords tends to substitute for meaningful thought. Sorry, life is just not that random.