Homo Photographicus

Nowadays, the number of photojournalists around the globe is growing rapidly and is clearly threatened in the future to catch up with the total number of human population. Camera arming and the richest and the poorest, remove all all all all all show through social networks. Removed are the most unbelievable situation. Let's talk a little bit about the benefits and costs of the avalanche process, its curiosities and its grotesque, sometimes bordering with mass insanity.

In us that something has changed dramatically over the past 10 years - in all of us.

Even in the first half of the 2000s, people were charged in its "Soap" photographic film for the New Year, clicked meal a couple of times, then in the summer of this same film podsnimali kebabs in the country, then a child with a bunch of the school on September 1 and dosnimali "tail" already at the next New Year's feast. film clip normal family gave to the developing times a year.

But something has changed.

Almost gone are simple, pick your nose "street idlers" - citizens staying at the place of any incident and just staring at him. Now most of the hands are full. They take off. What for? If you ask, many people do not find a rational answer.

"To check out the boys" - otmahnetsya from you the most talkative and will continue to "take a picture".

Shoot digital cameras and mobile phones, expensive, and penny. Remove the Arab sheiks and the kids from the slums of Sao Paulo, presidents and paupers.

2012. From left: Member of unrest in Cairo. Right: President Medvedev in Rio de Janeiro:

Read the police and strikers ...

... Amazon Indians and the Chinese Communists, the blonde on the White House lawn and woman wrapped in paranzhu ...

"Instagramyat" great filmmakers, Thai commandos, Moscow folk vigilantes ...

... Russian TV star and Afghan farmers:

The barricades in the streets of the troubled capitals not bristle with rifles and lenses:

There has gained popularity a couple of shots, clearly fixing this global change.

Here the crowd in front of the Cathedral of St. Peter in the Vatican in 2005, after the death of Pope John Paul II and the new Pope Benedict XVI was elected. And the crowd below in the same place after 8 years, in 2013, when the papal throne was occupied by Francis I.

which removes all of these people on the second shot? That there generally can be removed at a distance a mobile phone? From a professional point of view - absolutely nothing. But it's more like a subconscious reflex: to leave a personal digital footprint of the moment, it seems to be important.

Benedict XVI became the first pope in history ... was forced to constantly communicate not with the flock, and - with the pupils of its objectives:

Maybe that it laid down? Standing in front of the crowd, there was nobody to meet his eyes - All eyes in the viewfinder:

Even the clergy, too, do not remain aloof from the general film-making process:

Kiev, 2008. Nurse Orthodox priest during the service, which was conducted Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II and the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew.

Lenses shoot cameras and not the views of the faithful escort from now on his last journey of the Patriarchs and dads:

This is a frame from the funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash in 2010. Hearse floats through the streets of Warsaw:

What can be removed at this point, from this distance, mobile phone, and even without looking at the screen? A fragment of the car door? Glare on the glass? Such as photographers in the crowd in front of? It seems that throw up his hand with fotoustroystvom has become a gesture, emphasizing the importance of what is happening to us, our excitement or respect.

"This is such a moment! How can it not take off "- all owners of mobile phones woke up and lived a full life photojournalist. More recently it fotoreporterskoy professional duty was to capture on photo document and thus save from oblivion the key moments of the life of society. It seems that now the responsibility for it began to feel all of us?

Obama is said to be one of the best speakers of our time. But the era is that there is no certainty whether the speaker's audience hears. The audience follows the frame and the focus frame, and then tweet directly, instagramit, feysbuchit ...

... and then takes off again:

interaction with art takes you down the crowd, the art of posing his party members, the fans, the fans - that's what all the more acute need modern public persona. Matter which way they will carry after a meeting with you - no, not in their hearts. To begin with - in their cell phones.

If you're a celebrity, and even more so - the president, you do not have to listen to, but you exactly universally and totally removed.

The US Army is pleased to be able to take pictures of US President:

And the police. And the senators. And housewives. And the students:

And the students, and their parents ...

... and the highest elite of the country, has already met twice in the presidential inaugural ball, polls armed with the most expensive smartphones in the world.

It looks like a mass obsession. It's a fundamentally new phenomenon - removes crowd.

People eager to shoot anything that seems to them remarkable than you can then share with those who did not have a number. This total photojournalism.

Got in each inner photographer does not relax: "If you bear climbs out the window - fotkat it is luck," - he whispers.

If you have a dead elephant - make it a souvenir photo:

If you are in a neighboring yard catch terrorists and all the world's TV channels are there live broadcast, immediately run back to your iPhone. This will be your only shot, only for your children and grandchildren! April 2013. Boston, USA. Residents of neighboring houses remove the yard, where, in the boat, was found and arrested by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused of organizing bombings at the Boston Marathon.

If you are beaten guard the presidential palace, to storm you, do not forget to pofotkatsya all together before you start to take away the property of your former ruler.

April 2010. Kyrgyz protesters beat police in Bishkek during the storming of the government building.

Set fire to a car - shoot!

They came to the other grave - reach for a mobile phone!

to be with Gerard Depardieu in one of the royal box - so you'll be done for the sucker if nezafotkaete it with vspyhoy point blank!

You stand by the side of the Olympic track - remove yourself, do not be distracted by the athletes!

If you are an athlete, shoot anything that happens to you, from the very beginning of your career ...

... and to her Olympic peaks:

to your floor from the outside of the wall climbing people - first diversely photograph it. Then he will understand that he needs:

If you are a giant wave covers - remove it!

When the water subsides, will be something to remember.

If you are crucifying Christ - just reach for a mobile phone!

In general, if you witness something important or were close to someone important, do not waste time on-seed - the eyes and memories are unreliable. Engage your fotoustroystvo:

Later, at home, in a relaxed atmosphere you can savor all details. Unless, of course, you can make a dramatic "picture."

One of the most striking evidence of the changes that have occurred in the human response - the behavior of passengers in case of accidents in aviation.

50, 40, 30 or even 20 years ago, people who survived the crash, was laying a shock, stupor, hysterical, someone started to pray, someone - fell unconscious ... 15 or even 10 years ago, when mobile phones have already entered in everyday life, but still did not know how to take photos, people began to call relatives urgently to announce that the live ... But in 2010, sits in Domodedovo crash of Tu-154. Top and bottom left: pictures taken by passengers after a hard landing of Tu-154 in Domodedovo in December 2010. Bottom right: the author of the upper frame, bypassed all the tapes of news agencies of the world, with his mobile phone. Two people were killed and several were injured in the incident.

The fuselage is falling apart, two of the victims, the wounded there. But still, who could himself get off the plane, get a mobile phone, and above all else - detail remove debris.

Professional photographers are not allowed to the site of the incident, and so within an hour after the accident, all the world's news feeds are splashed with pictures of the most advanced mobile phones caught a passenger on board. Reporters from the news agencies just bought them from him.

It can be seen that there was shooting more than one person, and almost all those present. Shock, hysteria and fainting - then. First you need to remove.

In the entire history of the space shuttle is only one person was able to remove the shuttle launch due to cloud cover - and do it on your iPhone sleepy passenger regular flights, which woke the crew a message about an interesting spectacle for porthole:

In the past acted as professional photographers. Now so do the millions, if not billions already.

In 2007, the year at the world competition World Press Photo defeated Spencer Platt with the frame on which Beirut golden youth in a beautiful convertible arrived at the ruins of the consequences of the night pofotkat Israeli bomardirovki.

Then his colleagues have been many voices that no frame, and that is so important here removed? After a total of 6 years, it is clear that we face - CERTIFICATE turning point not only in photo journalism, but also in human evolution. WPP jury was able to understand and identify a person, the first recorded point where we have become "Homo removed". In one of the latest movies, reactionary father tells his son: "You must learn to remember everything without a cell phone!"

Perhaps this is one reason why running a chain reaction: shooting - the ability to connect emotionally to what is happening, blocking the camera, emphasize that you are part of the viewer. For many it is easier to live with. But the main reason, of course, we have woken up in the daily effort to share what they saw and simply declare themselves. Social networks have made it possible and necessary.

Photo front of our eyes become pervasive language of communication of huge masses of people, direct way to transfer their experiences and emotions, free from verbal limitations.

When photographing a person suspended from a dangerous reality, it finds in the frame of the viewfinder window.

The picture needs no translation. If she needs a short signature, it will put Google. Photography itself "read" for 3 seconds - almost discretely. According to the information by the user consumption rate, she leaves behind and the text, and video and audio recordings.

"Picture taxis." "Paparazzi" - a word that is born half a century ago, firmly established in the lexicon of the masses only in the last seven years and has changed its meaning in the public mind: for most it is not for Wildlife Photography "stars", but simply a man with the included "internal photojournalist."

"Photo and video amateurs" from the Taliban and similar organizations are very loved today shoot and share in the execution of the network of people ...

Gaddafi's death occurred practically in front of dozens of "amateur" lenses, and the death of Saddam took some "amateur".

The last moments of life of the former Libyan leader Gaddafi Muamura filmed on a mobile device by one of its capture by rebels

a mass audience could see all the details of the event, which could not see never before. It takes much of her imagination. Arsenal removing gadgets were added recently, automobile video. Soon, Google Glass will complete general shooting weapons. And then every step of every person is to guarantee someone is removed, at least in the public space.

Someone ready for it, some do not, but the violation of the privacy issue of life and death succumb to discuss others. I have something here I wanted to write about the possibilities that apparently, we now have to rediscover for itself.

Laying on every mobile phone owner's mission to document the events of our time, waking up every internal fotokorra, we get the result, which often looks like this:

This is the latest of the "frames, which impressed the world", four examples of the many (from left to right, row by row) Chelyabinsk car, filmed DVR, disembarkation of passengers Tilt "Costa Konkrodii" shot in the dark in the infrared range, the flood at the metro station in New Jersey during the hurricane "Sandy" - a surveillance camera shooting, and finally, the Tu-204 crash in "Vnukovo" - shooting a witness.

It's not even a low technical quality of the staff - even a couple of years of progress we have all the pillars will be hang miniature HD-camera, there is no doubt. Every crack to be seen.

But the fact is that we are rapidly getting used to impressive shots-fixations. It does not matter, they are made camera-robot or a living eyewitness to the mobiles, incites "an internal reporter." The principle of achieving the result they have one: "Something happened, I took off at once, here, check it out." Clicking made by reflex. Mechanically.

We are getting used to obtain the top layer of the event. We like this would be enough. How many people in the village boat. How are the wreckage. In one house smashed glass. We are getting used to not demand more from the "photo eyewitness." And from ourselves when we obtain a photo gadget. How can we forget, reportage premium frame - this is not the only one reflex?

More and visual expressiveness, precision of construction.

And the speed of reaction to what is happening:

And the instant selection details, perspective, point size:

And the ability to instantly add up image of the events of a few of its key elements, that is, to get something essentially more than just the sum of:

and the talent of empathy person in the frame. I think these pictures can not be done without a few moments to become his hero a single entity, not to live in his skin a few uneasy seconds. To then, looking at the picture, those seconds could live audience, the next day, or half a century later.

Maria Sharapova in the locker room after the victory at Roland Garros.

This is exactly the work that it would be great to wait still, demand that the modern media and decent pay and a new era. I think our world is much more interesting when we see it, not only through the robot-recorder lens or a mobile phone "accidentally witness", but also a thousand other ways, which are known to professionals, right?

Artem Chernov, "Russian Reporter"