Nobody cares about details, either, so I’ll keep this general: This past week I’ve been photographing a community event. I’ll be posting the images on a website so the participants can see them.

Two days ago, I was fairly happy with this picture... but wishing the moon were a bit more to the right. Now, I wonder why I should even care about that stuff.

Because I’m a bit picky about this sort of thing, I’m still facing many tedious hours of editing, cropping, straightening, exposure-balancing, and color-correcting. So far, I’ve posted only a few photos — but the participants have liked them and have posted appreciative comments. That made me feel good, since I’m a non-professional and photograph mostly for appreciation.

But meanwhile, there’s another community event going on, one in which several of my friends are participating, one which I’ve photographed in past years — and would have liked to shoot again, if it hadn’t conflicted with the event I was already photographing.

Somebody else did shoot it, though — and when I looked at his posted images, I didn’t really think much of them. Lots of sloppy tilts, dead foregrounds, bleached-out whites, cut-off feet… goofs I was making 20 years ago, but eventually steeled myself to delete without mercy.

And yet my Facebook homepage is bulging with rapturous comments from the people in the other guy’s pictures. The subjects think those images are beautiful, wonderful, like nothing they’ve ever seen, and they’re gushing with gratitude to the photographer for making them.

Which leaves me somewhat bummed — although, after examining my attitudes carefully, I don’t think it’s merely sour grapes. Okay, maybe a bit… but after all, I couldn’t be there, the other guy could, he got the shots, and my friends are happy. Fair enough.

And who knows, maybe they’re right and I’m wrong about the quality of his images: maybe their admirers feel the slop and dead space give them spontaneity and authenticity and atmosphere. (Hey, I use that excuse to rationalize my grainy, noisy low-light documentary photos, so I can’t kick when someone else uses it.)

Still, I don’t think we both can be right about what constitutes a “good” photograph of this kind of event. Yet both of us are getting similar reactions.

And that’s what’s making me unhappy. It brings me face-to-face with a truth that I’ve long suspected but haven’t wanted to confront:

Regardless of how you choose to define “quality,” there’s zero correlation between the quality of a photograph and most people’s appreciation of it.

In other words, when it comes to looking at pictures, regular people just don’t give a kack about all the stuff photographers spend so much time and sweat worrying about. As long as they can distinguish their faces and their friends’ faces from the background clutter, and everyone looks to be having a good time, they’re happy. Throw in some bright colors and they’re ecstatic. Put a border around it and heck, you’re an artist.

Which leaves me wondering: Why bother? Diane Arbus famously said that she photographed for herself, and strangers. But if the strangers don’t care, who else is left? Being a “serious photographer” helps prop up my shaky self-esteem… but if that’s all I’m doing, I probably could find a less-expensive and less-frustrating way to stroke my fwagile widdle ego.

So, at the tone, it is gut-check time. Yeah, I’ve been here before, and I’ll probably get over it (although I’m not sure I should.)

But at the moment, the entire contents of my camera cabinet are about two more gushy Facebook comments away from eBay.

Maybe I just need to stop reading Facebook…