>But it didn't give us the beautiful portraits and inspired lanscapes we expected, only millions of pictures of food.

Here's a sample of my work using digital cameras, not a food picture in sight.

https://flickr.com/photos/---mike---/albums/7217772029640662...

The thing about having the ability to take effectively free photographs is that it really lets you experiment and learn the edges of what's possible.

I was inspired by Stanford's camera array, and wound up doing virtual focus synthetic aperture photography. I'm hoping to build a rig to do it on near real time, instead of the manual process I used to do on my train rides to and from work.

Sure, the removal of cost lead to a flood of the mundane, but it also means we can capture our lives in ways that even kings couldn't afford in the past. I have thousands of good photos, and even some video, of friends and family.