There is a fellow photographer I know on a forum who goes on and on about their being so many cameras in the world. So many pictures being taken. He seems to be moaning all the time about some kind of idea that every picture will be taken.
Sort of like the notion that if you sat 100 monkeys down in front of typewriters for 1,000 years they would eventually churn out a play worthy of Shakespeare.
This is nonsense of course. There has always been plenty of artists and photographers, both professional and amateur. There has always been more supply than demand in art.
The problem for writers is not that there are too many pencils, typewriters or computers in the world. The challenge has always been to come up with something unique, original and great.
100,000s of thousands of books are released in the market every year. Some of them good, some of them great, some of them crap. A few make it to the top of the pile and on to the bestseller list.
Is the problem with the ones that don’t make it, that there are too many books around? Already we have libraries full of great books that would take a lifetime to read. Does that mean we should just stop writing books?
Museums are filled to the brim with masterpieces. Does that mean artists should stop creating art?
Facebook accounts are overflowing with baby pictures, vacation snaps, what I ate for lunch images. Does that mean fine art photographers should abandoned their pursuit of their personal vision? I don’t think so.