Scanning :: of 'bones'

Upscaling & upscaling

Scan baby scan [as inspired by face your pocket]

Responding to Ritchin [chapter 8]

To preface, Ritchin has felt incredibly repetitive these last few chapters. I understand his emphasis on a hypertext, a hyper-reality that incorporates the realm of digital photography. But I am not finding the chapters different enough from one to another. In every chapter he throws in a [or multiple] statements about a curious viewer who may mouse over an image and more would be revealed. He almost as often mentions how many websites, projects, and shows, that he was personally part of........................................................End preface, I just had to get that out.

I think what I enjoyed most about this chapter was thinking about how photojournalists and the media record events and how we view those events through the photography that is presented to us. When I looked at the two images [viewpoints] of American troops invading Haiti in 1994 part of me is angry at the audacity of journalists to 'stage' such shots [as the top image is shown to be staged via the bottom image]. But it really only takes a minute for my rage to be replaced by sheer embarrassment that I have yet again believed that I understood an event through ONE single image. What a fool I am, we all are when we believe in the 'truth' of imagery from the media, especially that concerning politics and war. Ritchin pulls the perfect quote from Benjamin Bradlee saying:

"...What is actually happening that is being described by the media? Is Somalia being assulted in the predawn dark by crack U.S. troops? Or are bewildered GIs being photographed by freelance photographers who have been waiting for them for hours? The difference is often critical."

Bradlee is speaking of 'double images' of which nearly all non-computer generated photographs are. Every photo shot 'forward' through a viewfinder also had a view behind and to either side of the camera. But we hardly ever get more than that one view presented to us. As viewers we have to be careful of making too grand of assumptions about an event just because of one image [even when accompanied by captions because they too can be incorrect].

I like the idea of allowing subjects to have a say in how they are portrayed in the images of documentation [or to allow local subjects to document themselves]. To do so may allow for less errors in interpretation about a specific person or groups of peoples. Indeed a nice thought, but as we see how others are portrayed (through Facebook, blogs, fashion magazines, etc) we often try to create our own like image. In imitating those imitations are we really portraying our true selves then?

And finally I come back again to thinking about the purpose of the media and photojournalists working in war, poverty, famine, and diseased areas. I will admit that I am a skeptic. I do not know the intentions of the photographers, nor how they came about their imagery (faked, staged, ill-gotten gained, etc.), nor if the captions are true, nor if the image has been digitally enhanced, nor if I really have any right to view the [gruesome, heartbreaking, outrageous, etc.] image they returned with. There are so many variables to contemplate when considering an image from the media. And so many ways that images can inspire help, and so many that breed destruction and hatred within our culture and others.

Responding to Ritchin [Chapter 7]

I enjoyed reading about “The Social Photograph”. I think that the beginning quote sums up part of my thought on photography in that I do not care where a photograph falls (art, documentary, journalism, commercialism) so much as I care about what it says to/about society. It is just like language and text. In the realm of the written word science, fiction, politics, religion, etc, are composed. All have very different purposes, yet are all written/recorded through the use of language/text. Photography too can be used one day as a documenter, the next as a writer of fiction. I think that is okay so long as we view photographs with an open mind and try to understand what we are looking at, how it was made, and the purpose behind the image.

I believe that photography can be (and has been, as Ritchin demonstrates) an incredible tool in bringing social situations to light. I think that what Ritchin demonstrates well in this chapter is the complex nature of actually shooting, sharing, and receiving photographic images of social issues. When it comes to the photographer, how do we trust his/her intent, view, that the scene was found and not composed, that the story recorded in captions are accurate? When it comes to the sharing/publication/distribution of imagery how do we trust that an image in view is original and is not a reproduction/enhanced version of the original? How do we trust authenticity? Again, how do we trust the story/captions that accompany the image? Finally, when it comes to us (the viewer) how do we trust our own reading of the image? How do we know that our own views of the world will not interfere and cloud our vision of what has been presented to us?

I believe that the internet too is as complex in nature as photography. It is hard to always know where the information presented on our screen falls in terms of fiction, truth, altered truth. When the internet and photography combine and together pump out more bits, bytes, and imagery than we can handle (which it does) then we begin to filter out the overload. Sometimes we mean to, sometimes we cannot help it. As I read I do keep coming back to the idea of hypertext. I believe that as negatively as we may view combining photographic imagery and hypertext we cannot escape that reality, and in fact we already live there. (Cyber) physically linked or not, definitions, captions, and personal viewer recounts and interpretations will be applied upon an online image. We will grasp a single word within the caption or webpage, or the photographer’s name, or the geographic location, and will continue searching for additional information to either further understand that specific photograph or to add to our knowledge of the world at large (inspired by the image). Either way, everything that we learn after that image will in some way refer back to it. We are already always applying information that the author did not specifically intend.

Responding to Ritchin [chapter 6]

What I kept coming back to in this chapter was the ideas/possibilities of using a collective everyone to create art, pictorial data bases, etc in photography. That is where we are in the realm of technology – computers, cameras, and editing software are all affordable and available to the masses [not just those with money and ‘training’]. The ability to teach oneself anything one needs to know about photography can be found on the internet. Finally, the ability to self publish [whether virtually or in print] is also available through free and low-cost programs; i.e. editing (Photoshop, GIMP), book formats (blurb), prints (mpix, online galleries that handle printing, packaging, shipping for others who want to purchase one’s prints), and online domains (blogs, Facebook, Flikr, etc).

::FACEBOOK::

Going along with the idea of society as collective contributors and Ritchin’s idea of ‘conversation’ and virtual reality I believe that we can already see the virtual reality that we live and breathe through. For me it always comes back to Facebook (but there are blogs, myspace, Youtube, and others too) – the virtual land where everyone has to post where they are, what they look like, who they are with, what they plan to do, and most importantly what they are thinking and or feeling. Where we used to be content having one on one conversations we now have to format that conversation so EVERYONE that we are ‘friends’ with can also see how that conversation went down. We feel the need to compulsively post photographs of ourselves through a bathroom mirror (sometimes 1000+ images of a single person on their own account). *

Earlier this term I was stuck in Eugene while the community I grew up in (and surrounding areas, family members, etc) was land-locked between two slides with flood waters rising around lower residences. Feeling helpless I found myself checking Facebook constantly to see status and photographic postings updating everyone as to what was going on and where. It was an entirely new world than the last large flood (in 1996) where texts, FB posts and images could all be utilized to either ask for help or ask what help was needed in the community. It felt altogether a bit safer knowing the networking/communication that was occurring to meet everyone’s needs. I could tell, however, exactly when the electricity would go out in the area because the FB postings would stop. Honestly (and pathetically)a very eerie feeling would occur, as if something were really wrong (rather than a simple and normal power outage during such circumstances) and I became amazed to realize how much I have come to depend on this type of technology. During that same time period Corvallis’ local newspaper, The Gazette Times, implemented a live news blog that allowed for anyone to post questions and answers about road and area conditions (also very fascinating to witness).

*DISCLAIMER: I am absolutely 100% guilty of that which I mentioned above…While I am commenting on the ridiculous nature of our virtual culture I also accept that I am part of and have helped encourage that culture.

Scan baby scan

While the end result of scanning [wet mount & dry mount] a single 4X5 B&W negative were visually very similar, I believe that I like the end image created after the dry mount scanning process: