people really like the ideas of: - locality - authenticity Look at the "Cape Girardeau" search on Flickr, see all the pix of Port Cape, that stupid Coca Cola sign.... It's kind of sweet & dumb in a way. Also, different people's (professional) personae[^1] are as different as different models of camera. Some are preferable in certain situations, some are harder to work with than others--all are most effective when the operator knows the limitations and makes the best picture out of available light. BTW, WRT that Coca Cola sign and how utterly boring all the pictures of it are,[^2] that's a perfectly good example of how a compelling image isn't necessarily a picture "of" "something." When you isolate and "capture" a "subject" like that, you've killed the freedom of the photons to become a real moment. You've used hundreds of dollars of precision equipment to stamp a primitive idea-gram onto the already tired consciousness of mundanity. Similarly, let's not try to force our "street" photographs into looking like "street" photographs, K? (2015) [^1]: Like when LaFleur came in here all bristling with authority and came down on hapless shithead Mason like a ton of judgment; then after the immediacy of the "turn over your phone" thing passed, he stayed here and calmed down and talked to him like something of an educator or an ally. And Mason is actually at least listening and responding now. Not saying it's going to "fix" anything, but at least it's a conversation. [^2]: And no, giving it a kitschy title showing your wry sense of gentle irony doesn't make it any better.