The Art of the Uninteresting: A New Film.
Title: The Art of the Uninteresting: A New Film for Photographers
Hey everyone,
We all feel it. The endless scroll. The constant sensory overload.
As photographers, we’re often pushed to chase the “banger”—the epic sunset, the dramatic portrait, the neon-drenched street scene. We’re told to make images that shout.
But what if the most powerful photographs are the ones that whisper?
This question has been on my mind for a while, and it’s the central idea behind a new short film I’ve just completed. I’m excited to share it with TheCameraForum community first. I’ve embedded it below from Vimeo, and I would be honored if you’d take two minutes to watch it.
The film is a visual essay on what I’ve come to call “the art of the uninteresting.”
It opens with the one color our culture has universally declared “dull”: beige. It’s the color of “watching paint dry,” of DMV waiting rooms, of elevator music. It’s the shorthand for everything we’re supposed to scroll past.
But as the narration suggests, “what we call boring often reveals more about us than the thing itself.”
For photographers, this is more than a philosophy—it’s a creative assignment. In a world saturated with digital noise, glitch art (1:05), and algorithms (0:25) that reward the loudest and brightest, our most radical act is to stop and look.
To me, “dullness is where everyone else stopped looking.”
This is our new frontier. This is our quiet rebellion. When we choose to photograph the “nothing” subjects—the subtle texture of a stucco wall (0:01), the mundane geometry of a brick sidewalk (0:34), or the sterile silence of an empty stool (0:50)—we are practicing a form of “visual empathy.” We are finding the “sacred geometry” in the things everyone else has dismissed.
The film’s narration puts it in a way I love: “Beige walls hold the light of resignation in ways a sunset never could.”
That’s the shot. That’s the story.
It’s not about what we’re shooting; it’s about our “failure to look.” As the film concludes, maybe this is the whole point. We’re not waiting for meaning to arrive. We’re realizing it was already there—in the silence, the repetition, and the pause.
📸 Your Turn: Let’s Discuss
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
- As a photographer, do you ever feel the pressure to fight against the “neon and noise”?
- Do you agree that “boring” is just a failure to look?
- Where do you find beauty in the “uninteresting”?
Share your thoughts below. Or better yet, post a photo you’ve taken that you feel celebrates “the art of the uninteresting.” Let’s see those beautiful, “boring” shots.
