How many seagulls do you see?

So I was reading about abstract expressionism in the during the Cold War and I started asking myself. Why has photography remained the same for such a long time? We’ve seen a large variety of painting in the last 200 years alone. But it seems like photography has been fairly stagnant. I don’t think that’s true. There are really impressive shots that exist throughout history. But where is the abstract expressionism, cubism, surrealism, etc, of photography? I had a lot of fun using my cyberpunk cameras and to a keen eye you could see the blend of a digital sensor and an analog lens. Those sensors really brought out the boketh of the the lenses and I love that, but I want to have more than just landscape and realism.

On my bluesky I posted an image I took of a donut shop in Portland, Maine. I adjusted the image to bring out the neon sign in front of the shop. But minor color tweaking and highlighting is just slightly funky realism. Databending is a really cool way to mess with the data that is stored within an image. I know this style will never reach mainstream and that’s okay. I do want to find a style of photography that is beyond just capturing what you see. I wanna capture things you don’t normally see.