I can’t stand photos being called "content" – it insults photographers and kills creativity

I’ve always regarded top-tier professional photographers with awe. The way they can adjust f-stops and ‘paint with light’ to conjure up – at their best – an image for the ages.

In my world, iconic photographs – David Bailey’s black-and-white of Mick Jagger in a fur hood or Duffy’s Alladin Sane-era Bowie spring to mind – get treated with as much reverence as paintings by the Old Masters. Even if the photographer has taken direct inspiration from the work of actual Old Masters, such as Girl With A Pearl Earring or The Birth of Venus.

We no longer need go to a gallery, or buy a book or magazine to view such imagery; a quick Google Search brings it up on-screen. However, that ready access – like turning on a tap to get water – has stealthily reduced the artistry it took to create them to a commodity. Or so the tech giants would like.

Whether we’re talking the musings of a Love Island contestant or sepia-tinged early photography by Julia Margaret Cameron, it’s all just now "content".

God, how I hate that word. I think the reason I dislike it is that it lumps everything together, regardless of merit or value. There’s no curation involved.

It’s therefore massively reductive and disrespectful to whoever has created the artwork, written the article, shot the film, recorded the blog or composed the music. It suggests that everything exciting about human expression is just data to be consumed – or force-fed to us by algorithms.

This isn’t snobbery or technophobia on my part; I’m more concerned about loss of humanity.

Yes, the 'content creator' economy might be, presently, helping to boost or prop up the photographic industry. The accessibility of technology may have also inspired someone to pick up a camera for the first time, build a website or launch a YouTube channel.

All of these are good things. So, the 'creator' half of that description is one that I like and have time for.

The 'content' half – the bit that’s not, by and large, serving the majority but instead the tech bros and social media giants – I’m far less enamored with or convinced by.

One thing I do like about social media – or, at least, did before it became addictively controlling and potentially toxic – is that, at its best, it can feel democratic. Like the playing field has been levelled.

However, far from art forms being more widely appreciated because of increased accessibility, we’re in danger of viewing the act of art creation in increasingly shallow terms. Terming everything "content" loses the wider context and any nuance in the ever-hungry pursuit of clicks.

When we talk about a photograph, we know immediately what we’re referring to. When we talk about "content", it could be anything. Or nothing.

And in my opinion, too often it’s nothing.

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