If one takes a macroscopic look at human beings situation evolution throughout the few last centuries, it is very noticeable that a growing part are given more and more freedom, as time passes. In rich countries, people are now (more and more) able to make a number of important choices: what do they want to study, what do they want as a job, do they want children and how many, where do they want to live, where do they want to go for vacations, what kind of food they want to eat, what kind of music do they want to listen to, etc. Many of these choices would have been considered as a great luxury not so long ago. The rights have been gained through social battles against a few highly privileged persons. Formerly, these were kings and emperors, now they are politics, big companies owners and any person willing to hold always more and more power in their hands.
However, I believe that a vast majority of these rights are allowed mostly because they serve a purpose. Still the same old one. Everyone knows that chickens raised outdoors are much tastier than battery farmed ones... looks like it's the same for human beings. Men with more freedom grow up better, and are more productive. The problem is, these last years, the Internet appeared, and chickens are now communicating in a worldwide scale... and of course, they are starting to realize why they are allowed to run in the grass, as long as they do not try to go past the fence. This was long neglected by power holders, and they now have a serious problem: the recent events in several countries (the Arab Spring) demonstrated what decisive role the Internet can play, and what consequences such communication can have.
SOPA, PIPA, ACTA (and similar bills or laws)are plain shameless tries to restrain that communication, and get things under control again. These ones claim to address a particular problem (piracy of cultural products), but their principle can simply be summarized in controlling the knowledge people can access to. Music and movies is simply the tip of the iceberg. Don't get me wrong, I am not in favor of piracy: I am in favor of true freedom. I want to be able to buy any kind of music I like, not ONLY the one a particular company decided to produce, to advertise on TV and radios to no extend, annihilating any alternative. This is where the Internet is a complete revolution, which is consequently attacked in order to muzzle it.
I choose to depict the situation using good old books, not electronic devices, for a similar reason: the ones willing to restrain access to knowledge would LOVE the whole world to rely on them... if these devices become the only way to get to education or entertainment, imagine how easy it would be to control and filter things out! Just a mouse click from a desk in a tower, and tada, no one in country A can read or see about country B. Or no one can learn about idea X. How convenient.
Thank you all very much for your great comments and votes, they are very much appreciated. This was quite a challenge for me to create that picture, and I highly enjoyed working on it. I'm very glad some of you liked the result.
"We don't need no thought control!" (Pink Floyd, The Wall, 1979)
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Place: 1 out of 38 Avg (all users): 7.8344 Avg (commenters): 8.8182 Avg (participants): 7.4400 Avg (non-participants): 7.9091 Views since voting: 7179 Views during voting: 576 Votes: 157 Comments: 49 Favorites: 9 (view)
I will read again and again "photographer's comments" and view over and over "Thought Control". You have expressed many of our sentiments represented by your excellent photo. Congratulations!
I have seen better composites from you and this may be my least favorite of them all. I feel like some of the elements have not been merged together smoothly, especially the burning books in the air, it looks too much like they were pasted in there because their lighting, brightness, and sharpness don't quite match with the rest of the image. It took me awhile to figure out what the image was trying to say because the books are not clearly visible at all which is what this image is all about ... burning books. I am sure this was partly due to the limited image size (only 800 pixels), but I would have placed a book much, much closer and larger to the viewer in order for the viewer to understand immediately books are the main thing we are talking about here instead of searching for them mainly in the darkness. Fire could have been better too. Still great job in the short amount of time that you had and congrats on the blue and I hope you don't mind some critiques from me.
Of course we all knew this was you :-)
Initially I thought to myself "he missed a trick, he's burning books not the Internet! Quelle fromage!?" but then I thought about it a bit more and realised this shows the cyclic nature of history. Great image.
Awesome compilation! I guess I low-balled you with the 9 I gave you. 10s being the most frequent.
However, when I read: "Everyone knows that people raised outdoors are much tastier than battery farmed ones... looks like it's the same for human beings." I started wondering about you a bit. Then I realized that I was way too tired, and started wondering about me a bit!
Congratulations, Christophe. A very creative and thought provoking piece. I think that the present day cultural exchange genie is going to be impossible to bottle up again and there will be little willing participation from the masses in any bonfires of the vanities.
Very well done as usual.
But a little surprise you chose depict a manifestation of another age. My wife still remembers the burning by the American Legion of all books written or about Russians in her hometown library in the late 50s. This behavior had then more to do with “terminal stupidity” while this SOPA thing rimes better with “power”, “greed” and “control”.
congrats on the blue Christoph :) hehe i like the shadow detail and they're awkward movement. the only thing id say and this is not detrimental to your score but i can tell teh fire is a small fire not a large fire, i burn a lot of large fires clearing sites and demolition and theres something about a large fire. great work though, i hope no books were harmed in the making of this photo ;)
although looking through i think the library photo is going to give you a very good run for your money
Very well done as usual.
But a little surprise you chose depict a manifestation of another age. My wife still remembers the burning by the American Legion of all books written or about Russians in her hometown library in the late 50s. This behavior had then more to do with “terminal stupidity” while this SOPA thing rimes better with “power”, “greed” and “control”.
Woah, what are all carrying?
votes?
sorry Christophe, I couldn't resist :D
very good job as always.
my only nitpick would be that simulating some more heat and dust in the air on the puppeteer, which would have gone well with the giant fire and the strong wind that seem to be blowing on the scene, but I am nitpicking.
Christophe this reminds me of some great books: Fahrenheit 451, Tommy Knockers, War of the worlds. I love it very much except for the flying book on the left that seems less real than the rest of the image.
Edit: I meant the book on the right... of course :)
The minds of DPC photographers is amazing, and then to create there vision to canvas even greater,this image is almost like the burning of all books in the lead up to the second world war,only this time with remote electronics.....10
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