It’s almost 4.30am and I still can’t sleep. 

I haven’t had a decent nights sleep for a week, I just can’t switch my mind off. I’ve got a shoot that I’ve been looking forward to in less than 12 hours. I’m constantly doing the sums…i had 3ish hours sleep yesterday, and it’s been 14 hours since I slept, so I need to get at least a few hours sleep before the shoot. But how much? And when? And how?

Who knows, but my mind keeps churning out the thoughts.

Modern photography shits me. We are taking more photos now than ever before, but no one is looking. They live and die in a few seconds as people scroll thru their social media feeds. At best they might pass for a second or two to hit the like button, but that’s it. No stops to linger, look, explore, savour.

Modern digital cameras are killers…30 megapixels x 15 frames per second. Spray that fucker like an uzi and you’ll definitely get something. Image stabilisation and shutter speeds up to 1/8000th of a second will get you sharp images. And don’t worry if your exposure is off. They’ve got the dynamic range, you can fix that in post. Super sharp lenses that show up every pimple, freckle, scar, scab, wrinkle and pock mark means you need to soften that skin and clone them all out in photoshop so there’s barely a pore visible. Don't worry there's plugins and filters that'll make their skin look like plastic. Model a bit thicker round the middle than you’d like to them be? Liquify in a few inches and give them an extra cup size or two of boobs. They’ll love you forever.

Nothing is real. The trust between the photographer and viewer has been broken forever.

In future people will look back at photos taken today and be rightfully skeptical. How can they know what’s real?

When I look back at a lot of the old masters of photography, there’s a strong chance they wouldn’t be discovered these days because they’d be constantly booted off Facebook and Instagram for their work not meeting acceptable community standards. No one wanting to be shocked or offended by nudity.

Their “community standards” are a creative contraceptive.