I am, in a general way, against photography. It has always been a deadly process, but in our time, new and hidden dangers have arisen that have essentially guaranteed its role as a lethal curse. My position is unpopular, since, frankly, nearly everyone has been turned into both a consumer and a creator, and, valuing such rare roles in the culture, it is understandable that people would feel attached to the roles, the technologies, and the products.

But they kill. In secret ways no one is paying attention to. And those ways are reproducing and speeding up geometrically over time. People don’t think photographs kill. But they do. Especially today, and especially nature.

Consider the ‘film’ ‘Avatar’. Here we have an example of something presenting itself as an ecological advocate. In point of fact, this film did nothing but catastrophic harm to the environment. Imagine the deaths required to script, film, process, package, sell, ship, and view the film, not to mention all the endless ‘associated products’. What was the net outcome? Atrocity dressed up as heroism. That film, just by existing as a film and becoming incredibly popular, did more damage to the environment than anyone has yet imagined. It continues to.

Now think about photographs. Not a few, billions per hour. In fact, think about -all- the streams of photography going on, including all surveillance. Now think about the electricity to store, transmit, back up, and view these images. Not once, but often billions of times. Think of how they get duplicated … across endless systems… and all of the human and electronic resources that go into these processes.

And what you get is this: death. In the environment? Photographs -cost lives-. Every time. Animal lives. Human lives. Insect lives. Forests. Electronic media -has costs no one cares to examine because they do not have to personally pay them-. But I want you to realize this: ‘shooting pictures of beautiful nature’ -may cost that nature its existence- and much sooner than you imagine.

We must reconsider the image and our relationship with it. Creating endless ‘hard recollections’ not only destroys the environment, it is cognitively and relationally toxic. Images are artifacts, and the living world has little to do with those, except as food for the new generation.

Photography is a dangerous technology, and we need to understand its outcomes and implications far more deeply than we do, fast. Here’s why: you are now competing against photographs for survival. So am I.

And you might not believe this, but we’re losing.