I have an unpopular opinion that I’ve been holding on to for a couple of years. It stems from an ad on a camera-makers’ website.

“If a camera is higher in resolution, memories are more vivid.”

It was a rare moment of real silence for me when I read that. I was amazed, both that camera companies still think they can sell cameras with numbers, and that anyone would believe them.

It’s tempting to create absurd analogs to point out the fallacy: if I have better ink, will I be a better writer? Or, if I have a pen with a lot more ink, will it make me a better writer?

Oh, I know. This one is even better: with more ketchup, your hamburgers will taste better!

I’ll pile this onto an idea with a running question in my own photography circles: what is the best way to bring photography closer to authenticity? Is authenticity measurable, or do we just decide as we go? Creating a photo with AI seems inauthentic until some honest softball mom uses AI to make a poster for the team’s fish fry.

None of this is new or groundbreaking, but I think it is more important than ever.

I know some people who swear that the answer is to use film. It’s temping to say that old ways of expressing ourselves are paths to authenticity, but it can also be another way to dodge the issue. Think about old analog technologies that don’t doin’t automatically produce authenticity: AM radio, junk mail, and home shopping networks, just to name a few.

But back to the camera at hand. My always example: look at a picture and tell me the resolution. Tell me what’s no good about it. Tell me how much more resolution it would need to make this memory “more vivid.”

So sure, we would all like to be able to express ourselves authentically, but neither the media nor the outcome are what earns authenticity. The only real measure of this is in your own thoughts.