Thierry Maindrault’s Monthly Cogitations
Always more…, always more big, always more fast, always more numerous, always more high, always richer. It’s dry, it’s cold; but how enticing these litanies seem, enveloping our world with the virtues of Nessus’ tunic. These chimerical dreams were supposed to bring universal happiness, at least for our planet. The gigantic mess created in just a few years by this philosophy was supposed to solve all the problems encountered in our random lives in this world. This Holy Grail, the pinnacle of gigantism, has imposed itself on globalisation. Always more became admirable! Waiting for universalisation to flourish; but, everything in its own time. I am not going to quibble unnecessarily about this pseudo-evolution, which is not really evolution at all: delusions of grandeur are certainly one of the most recurrent forms of madness since one of our ancestors became aware that he was thinking, without having previously acknowledged it. It is up to each individual to position themselves on their own scale. It is not certain that a globalised way of thinking imposed on everyone is a “nec plus ultra”.
Why dwell on this fashionable gigantism? Because photography, with its technique, is directly impacted within its technological solutions, so we are all concerned except those who are technologically incapable. Also, because the many uses of the photographic image for various purposes, targeted and intelligent, are being martyred, even made obsolete.
For all of us who use some or all of the digital technologies, both to capture light and to produce or transfer photographs, the technological evolution of existing processes is relentless. Each evolution for always more offers us new working possibilities. Always more pixels on sensors, always more high resolutions through our lenses, always more fast pre-processing, and always more storage for our shots. It’s in the box! Certainly, but it’s not over yet, except for those who are content to press the little button and imagine that they have just given birth to a masterpiece. With or without the little boost imposed on them by the binary concepts of their camera equipment. For all other photographers, some of whom are also creators, post-production requires always more powerful software (when they don’t lose their minds), always more large storage units (despite their increasingly miniaturised appearance), and always faster computers. In short, there is no denying that these developments have delivered on their promises.
Amazing, isn’t it?
Except that all these small developments come at a cost, and not just a financial one. The impact on our planet (and therefore, among other things, on humanity) is far from negligible. The material realisation of all these technological developments consumes a disproportionate amount of energy and gobbles up tonnes of raw materials, which are then recycled into products that will remain toxic for centuries. It is clear that some people are not always wrong in their avalanche of warnings. Even if these realities are drowned out by too much nonsense, let us remain attentive to the irreversible realities.
And then there is the question: why this profusion of possibilities for non-use in all objectivity? It has been proven that each of us uses on average, including exceptional occasions, only ten per cent of the potential offered. If we take into account the needs of all users of the same tool, we do not reach thirty per cent of the possibilities (often redundant). Everything else seems like waste, based on the new mass dogma of ‘who can do more can do less’. However, this argument is no longer acceptable when it is clear that the material results obtained are far beyond human physiological and biological capabilities. Only a few scientific experiments find any interest in identifying (after digital reconstruction) the colourimetry and volumetric characteristics of a pebble lost on your terrace, photographed by one of the thousands of satellites that pollute our view of the universe.
Have we not reached the limits of our megalomania? Chasing after this little box with sixty million pixels, with a nanometric optical separation and a shutter that decides and claims the optimum moment for the “crime“.
Our second section concerns the use of photography. Indeed, our ever-increasing desire for always more also extends to the many uses of photographic images. The phenomenon of quantitative expansion began to emerge in the 1970s and 1980s, with the gradual arrival of automation in certain processes essential to the creation of a photograph. The built-in light meter before it was coupled, the built-in rangefinder before it was coupled, and this magical light box allowed some professional photographers’ clients to produce their own photographs. What amused me greatly was that this work was often entrusted to the family’s weakest member, who was incapable of performing any other task. But I was foolish to laugh at this, because manufacturers saw exponential potential for selling their equipment. Ultimately, they didn’t care how their invention was used; to each his own problem.
The advent of digital technology did nothing to improve the situation, making the results, intended for professional use, accessible and usable to the public. Then, everything revolves essentially around the balance between the price of the camera and the number of buyers. The photograph is taken, either by a camera or by its owner (the balance between the two is no longer decisive). In addition, what do we do with this new image frozen on a memory card? Except for looking at it in the camera’s viewfinder or, at best, in the strange window (TV screen) of the house converted into an all-purpose screen, we do nothing. The presumed author (with rare exceptions) is strictly incapable and incompetent to do anything! But something will get us out of this impasse, thanks to an extraordinary little cloud – known as virtual –. It has come out of nowhere to take charge (apart from resistance from the author of picture) of every photographic (or other) file, provided it is digital. This vacuum installs its harvest in a string of data centres located all around the planet to allow everyone to admire all these sublime artworks stored for eternity. This is a bit simplified; we may return another time to the sprawling hell of data centres for our works.
Each image is also duplicated and stored in dozens of locations (at least). However, millions of images are created every day, most of which end up in the cloud (because there are now so many of them). Is this hyper-redundant storage in ever-larger centres really reasonable? These billions and billions of components consume billions and billions of watts to enable grandma to see a photo of her youngest grandchild every day (if not every hour). The same wastefulness is used to make your friend salivate with envy when she sees a photo of your latest… hamburger! Global investment in energy in 2025 will be $330 trillion, of which $220 trillion will be only for electricity. A large part of this electricity is consumed by digital and its energy-guzzling digital storage centres.
Are we really convinced that always more is always better?
Thierry Maindrault, June 13, 2025
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