My craziest article so far. ♪♫♪♪♫♫♪♪ 



Only the press populace can swell this craze? Naaaaaa, each of us do swell this craze. We, as simple earth dwellers bound from littoral wombs of our beautiful mothers swell this. We, as part of the corporate society swell this. We, being a documented celebrity of our own, swell this. We, hoping to get an element for simple blackmail have and will really swell this. And for reasons we still ought to know, swell this. 

Enough of the swelling thing now for it might cause rather engorgement of your brain tissues and inflammation of your eager thoughts. Let us look at whatever this macro focal mania I’m heaving at about. This caught my fancy upon reading a feature article from a connection and a feature story slash debate from a local channel. Simply it is the art of photography. Of how grayscale it has been before turning out to be as intricately colorful as woven fibers of Mindanao’s batik. Of how it existed for the purpose of simple documentation of events listing in history before spiraling to the streaming realm of webby cyberspace. And of how it manufactured itself from plain industry into hobby of complexities. 



To get one started, it’s a need to bring into fusion FIVE vital ingredients to decipher the province of photography (that, for sure includes its sub-focuses and yes, municipalities). Don’t mind maps. Don’t mind politicking. Don’t mind those cooking shows bragging about Perfection (with a capital E) or those ballet classes seeking for just-what-the-doctor-ordered pair of legs and ideal cottony tights and tutus. That will give you a headache Greek. Chill.

Only hence the exploiting began to collect the five ingredients in creating the craze.



PLUNK A SYMBOL (from history to what’s now)


First, that “focal” thing needed a symbol that would make itself plunk out in the people’s minds, a symbol such as the coonskin cap that Walt Disney gave to his Davy Crockett creation or the “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Music’s Gold Bugs” effect of the Beatles. For a symbol, it was apparently decided to have a symbol dragging images in the kingdom of immortality. What a perfect idea of inventing it as a symbol? Too perfect it would be photographs — those that where an image, from light-sensitive surface, been created by beam falling upon it — which usually are “photographic film or an electronic imager”. Most photographs are fashioned using a camera, which uses lens, of the camera to focus the prospect’s visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of what the human eye would see. Thank you Lord Wiki. 
”I have the satisfaction of being able to tell you that through an improvement in my process I have succeeded in obtaining a picture as good as I could wish…. It was taken from your room at Le Gras with my biggest camera and my largest stone. The objects appear with astonishing sharpness and exactitude down to the smallest details and finest gradations. As the image is almost colorless, one can judge it only by holding it at an angle, and I can tell you the effect is downright magical.” 

This is Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s letter to his brother, Claude (16th of September 1824). Nièpce was the very first person to identify the process by which he obtained the first permanent photographic images. He dimpled the word heliography in the olden times to secure permanent images by photochemical means and further experimentations that finally led with the chemical process, the power of the camera, the thriving chase for intransience, and the collective curiosity and clarity of the inventor, all came remarkably together; Niépce made the FIRST PERMANENT PHOTOGRAPHY from nature. 



FILL THE NEED (from need to want)


A second ingredient necessary for a craze is to fill some important subconscious need of humans. Humans see themselves as a subjugated people constantly exposed to arbitrary edicts from the line of what we call Sages — living in chestnuts and formula. They say, its function embarks not in the interior of the φῶς (phos) and the γραφή (graphê) but by the meaning.
Far from having it as a recreation it has been said that preserving moments could be as hard as a diamond lozenge but in photography, it was never impossible. But because its needed. It was given importance — from need and wants.

As of today, when was the last time you have had an occasion in your school and you got a hundred of pictures on your cam. Were you able to go to the nearest one-hour developing shop in downtown alleys and develop the picture? Or you might have just paid 20php in an internet café to upload your pictures on Facebook. Does that suffice the need for preserving? Yes, of course. Stupid me.



METAPHOR MANIPULATOR (from photographers to graphic artists)


A third ingredient needed to get a craze starts with the manipulator. He does the thing. Photographical depictions… Bringing metaphors to life… He can catch a hyena wolfing a prey or a vulture consuming a 10-day old carcass. Piece of muck! Or on a lighter note, grab a macro focal image of President Obama coiling up dried mucus from his proboscis or yea, nose, nasal passages whatever. That is how powerful a manipulator of photography can be. Thus I say, or anyone can simply say that photography is a piece of dung without the photographer. 

Somehow, there are deals right now stating that man looks not at the art of photography but with how the photographer looks like (that is in cases of the entertainment industry). They might have concluded that anybody, if only be taught about photography and how to take pictures and of how to have a professional camera, can certainly do the same simple thing. What on earth would it be, still photographers take pictures to earn money (in professionals’ case) whilst amateur photographers capture photographs for gratification and to record an occurrence, emotion, place, or person in a assortment of lives they’re digging their way on.

Peter Doyle elaborates that photography now attracts a learned suspicion. The adage saying “a photo never lies” is progressively more hardened as digital photography becomes the photographic standard, including its inherent ease of manipulation.

Remember the time where local entertainer had her picture scattered declaring wardrobe malfunction hence letting her private part toss one of its dried grapes? This goes to the fourth ingredient. 



GENTLE SLOPING (from originals to photoshop)

“You are not a good photographer, you’re a good photo editor.” – My friend #1


“Hindi na ako mag-aaral ng photography, Photoshop nalang.” – My friend #2


“I don’t know how to phrase my question.. umm ano pong masasabi niyo sa mga taong mahilig magmanipulate ng pictures sa mga editing softwares pero ang result e nagiging super maganda (sometimes to the point of looking unrealistic) naman po yung mga shots nila? Kasi po parang nagiging disadvantage na ng digital photography yung capability na ma-edit yung photos, kasi parang ang nagiging competition na po eh hindi yung skills mo sa pagkuha through your lens, instead eh yung skills mo sa pagkuha through your mouse… ^_^”

A very Filipino opinion about photography (literally and figuratively) versus photo-editing that can whichever make you pause and think or immediately disagree. You may say that hey, capturing pictures doesn’t end in merely clicking your camera and post-processing is good. Or you may say, it is just like in the Dave Hill effect, no matter how good you are in editing, if you don’t have a nice photo to begin with (from concept to image-in), you won’t nail the effect still. But either way the road shall confide at, garbage in and garbage out, a good photographer has a big bulbous chance of becoming a good photo editor but a photo editor has must first have the innate skillful clicking hands to produce real photography and drag originals in the realm of immortality. 

A fourth ingredient needed to keep a craze, now, is keeping the rolling once it shows signs of starting. (?) Keep up the good work you two. Photography and photo editing, in point of fact, complements and harmonizes each other. There’s no “vs” thing sandwiched between them. 



MOOD OF THE TIMES (from nothing to everything)


Finally, a craze can succeed only if it meets the mood of the times. Photography did. And so are we. 


Was I able to answer the title? Hell, yeah!

If you can’t stand my being crazy, go kill a cat and make your own siopao or if not, just take a picture of that cat as a remembering honor. If that is, photography now enters still the scene. Who knows, that picture might cause the craze!