OpenTube

The Disease of Aesthetic Photography (And Why It’s Ruining The Medium)

Jared Thomas Tapy

77,479 views

Photography has a problem.

In today’s world of Instagram, presets, and cinematic edits, we’ve become obsessed with making images that look good, but say nothing.

In this episode of Marks Of The Maker, we break down what I call “The Disease of Aesthetic Photography”, and how the modern obsession with aesthetics, perfection, and performance is quietly killing storytelling in photography.

This isn’t a tutorial about gear or editing.
This is about how we see, and what we’ve lost.

In this video, we explore:

Why aesthetic photography has taken over social media
The difference between a beautiful image and a meaningful photograph
How Instagram and algorithms have shifted photography from storytelling to performance
What we’ve lost by prioritizing style over substance
The importance of observation, empathy, and human connection in photography
How legendary photographers like Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange, and Lewis Hine created images that actually changed the world

If you’re a street photographer, documentary photographer, or creative struggling to find meaning in your work, hopefully, this video will challenge the way you think about photography entirely.

This video is for you if you’re interested in:
Street photography, documentary photography, photography philosophy, storytelling through images, improving your photography, finding your style, and creating more meaningful work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IG: @JAREDTAPY
TIKTOK: @JAREDTHOMASTAPY_
SUBSTACK @THECREATIVECONNECTION

#photography #photographer #streetphotography #streetphotographer #documentaryphotography #photojournalism #photographyphilosophy #learnphotography #photographytips #photographyeducation #filmphotography #analogphotography #35mmfilm #filmisnotdead #shootfilm #nycphotographer #newyorkphotography #nycstreetphotography #newyorkcitylife #madeinnyc #nycartist

20 Comments

@weldinco 6 months ago (edited)

"The digital age rewarded immediacy and it punished nuance." You hit that nail square on the head, the punishment of nuance applies to so much of our society in general.

@denislaroche3957 6 months ago

Im 62, took me years and years to understand what you say in 20 minutes, well done and cheers from Montreal.

@DiegoPereyra 6 months ago

"An endless stream of beautiful nothings..."
Great description in only six words, that's really good man.

@digeratadesign 6 months ago

one correction on Dorthea. She took 3 pictures of migrant mother. and then reposed her fro the final shot. the way her hand was on her mouth. She waited for the kids to look away which gave the shot a larger sense of desperation. So yea, theres that.

@phiswe 6 months ago

Juxtaposing 'aesthetics' and 'beauty' with 'meaning' misses the point a bit. If something resonates and has meaning, that is its beauty and is its aesthetic. This can be true whether looking at an exciting or a mundane landscape/subject.

It’s more useful to think of Beauty as something that can be either meaningful or superficial (or both even), without throwing away its importance to the human experience. Disregarding beauty altogether often results in an over-reliance on irony and cynicism (see Robert Adams’ Beauty in Photography).

@LAB-84 6 months ago

I went to shoot some landscape today. It was wet and windy. I tried to wipe the rain drops off my lens as much as I could. When I got home and processed the images, there was rain spots all over them. I was going to retouch them out, but now I think I’ll keep them. Thanks for the vid.

@Shaun_La 6 months ago

It depends on how you look at it. I have been a darkroom film photographer for 30 years, the commercial side has always been there, from Martin Munkácsi to Richard Avedon to Annie Leibovitz.

The commercial side does not define Photography, it is a huge economic layer in the Medium; however, it does not balance the core. As one learn more & more about Photography, the lesson of commercial trends or fads are accepted but understood to be an offset to Popular Culture.

Therefore it is not ruining the Medium, it is just orbiting in the Space of Photography.

@rosswatson9144 6 months ago

Photography has been around for about 150 years now… Images by the billions, especially these days with these phones… I wonder if the original stories even exist anymore… A century ago we were envelope in depression and war… Millions were dying throughout the world… Tribalism was everywhere as was poverty starvation… The true holocaust… Despite what everyone seems to say we live in shallower times… I see this when I travel to countries I was in half a century ago… I cannot tell you how much things have changed… And how much things have blended together throughout the world… Have lost their edge… Which was what we used to photograph. Even when we do reach to the edge, we are in danger of replicating some great photographer from a century ago… The blurring, the shadowing the complexions, the actions and gestures… Decorations and colorations have of course been done before… With the added poignancy and poetry of age. The medium is a message… And photography certainly isn’t what it used to be when we used film and dark rooms… I’m sure there is great imagery out there, but it is being buried by the billions of mediocre photographs… And even when you do find a jewel, you realize that it is only you in that moment that sees it… It’s not shared like in a national geographic or life magazine of the past… Times have changed… We are in a new kind of wilderness.

@dangilmore9724 4 months ago (edited)

You are spot on. As a commercial photographer and photojournalist, it's gotten worse with the internet and algorithm. Today, if you don't suck up to the algorithm, you probably wont get seen.

The trick is to make truth the esthetic.

@victoralmeida4276 4 months ago

Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of beauty, art, and sensibility, analyzing human sensations and perceptions in response not only to the beautiful, the sublime, and the grotesque, but also to how we experience and interpret sensory forms more broadly. Originating from the Greek aisthesis (perception), it investigates sensory experience and judgments of taste, extending beyond beauty to encompass meaning, emotion, and everyday experience—suggesting that aesthetic engagement is not a limitation of art, but one of its fundamental conditions; to criticize art for being “aesthetic” is, in a sense, to misunderstand the very condition through which art is experienced/created at all.

@confrontingphotography4815 6 months ago

While I am generally in the same camp as your are, it’s worth pointing out that your argument here isn’t with aesthetics. Aesthetic just refers to how the visual elements of an image- line, space, shape, hue, tone, rhythm are used in an image. Your argument is with certain ideological beliefs that lead to an over emphasis on the picturesque and empty formal gestures, it’s with photographers who create pictures in ignorance thinking that the picturesque is the sole purpose of an image (case in point Thomas Heaton and Mads Peter something or other who specialize in making all landscapes vapid and saccharine.)

Further, photography isn’t inherently a narrative medium, yes certain aspects of story DO appear in photographs, photographs do often contain historical elements for example and we, as viewers, can look at images with the intent to create narratives in and from the images but that does not somehow turn it into a narrative medium. It’s not difficult at all to find stories that can’t be told in photographs, I deal with this fact every damn day. To repeatedly insist, as you do here, that telling a story is the purpose of photography is just as overbearing as the insistence on the picturesque. It obscures other possibilities of the image and clearly marks the limits of your own thinking. Photographs can be a number of different things and have more than one function. It’s not a dichotomy, and presenting it as such is suffocating. I was gasping for air as I watched this and no, it’s wasn’t my sleep apnea.

@bryancaron6729 5 months ago

I like your channel and I love your work, but I honestly took a bit personally. I see what you mean but I don't totally agree with it. Not every one want to be a great photographer. From my point of view I like to take aesthetic well compose stuff because I like to feel the rush of dopamine when I manage to catch "l'instant décisif", the perfect moment. Me and others knows that we all swimming in a see of images. Considering this I'm just happy that there is many different photographers out there being passionate. Maybe someday I'll be the artist who will go somewhere to shoot for a story, a message. But for now I'm just in love with the craft, like most of us here. And I think this is the most important, because it's beautiful.

@granttaylor4370 6 months ago

“A sunset that was never warm” absolutely incredible

@nicolasfl1864 5 months ago

Beauty alone can in fact carry the value of meaning. You underestimate how dreary the human condition really is.

@Tomservoca 6 months ago

I've been banging on about this for years. Not that anybody listens or reads what I write. So many images that I see online are no better than the stock images that litter corporate websites.

@LogansCollective 5 months ago (edited)

I would argue its all how YOU choose to experience and use photography!

Fan Ho, who is a world famous photographer, did the opposite. He took composed scenes at sunrise and sunset and waiting for someone to walk into it to take the photo.

Many GREAT photographers die without anyone knowing their name or work

Fall in love with the process, do what YOU think is cool. If thats what everyone else is doing, great. If you want to be different, great. Just fall forward and enjoy what you create!

@J5L5M6 5 months ago

Empathy disguised as timing. A great sentiment. Thanks for the insights.

@ChrisDN 6 months ago

12:46 This reminds me of that first year of Threads existing. Dozens of fresh photos daily of the trams in Lisbon over and over again.

@raolhooley 5 months ago

You are half right..lol..parks and lange were definitely concered with form and artifice within the subject.its a matter of degree

@valliwulf 5 months ago

One a thing that bothers me immensely is people contact photography pages magazines and submit their pictures and ask for support and receive criticism and the critique that they received from professionals who are all about the procedure the rules and nothing else I have seen perfectly good photos torn down by the so-called photography professionals who seem to lack the creative vision and image to be able to understand what it is to be human because as you said it's not the same as everyone else's University education