The response I have after reading the third chapter of “After Photography” is the same response I had after reading the first two chapters, the same response that I seem to have after contemplating any photography reading which is to question WHAT IS THE TRUTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY [to me]?
I cannot decide. Is there any truth? Is there any originality? My whole self wants to say yes, there is a pure truth in photography - there is pure documentation in that family snapshot placing a group at that one cabin that one summer. But as we have all been taught, photography itself (even if unaltered and of the correct exposure, color, etc) is only ever a part truth. We replicate what we have seen before. The sheer number of images of the Eiffel Tower (commercially, professionally, and tourist produced) depict a society that wants to produce and own that which has already been produced and owned. But that smiling family snapshot taken from no-where remarkable, is it really truth? Was everyone really happy? Were the parents hiding anger or hatred beneath their facial surfaces? Was one child sunk in a depression that everyone kept secret? What is present outside of the frame? And so we replicate even the ‘happy family’ so that others can see and believe that family.
If there is a constant lack of truth in even amateur snap-shots documenting vacation, then do we/I really care that a snapshot was taken at all in the location one claimed to have gone? Do I care that there are machines and programs that can now take a photo for one so that he/she do not have to? Ritchen makes a very interesting point that tourists could grab their image in the place they are headed before they actually head there. To get that aspect out of the way so that one can actually explore and recreate in their limited time away is intriguing. But if the taking of an image is so annoying/time consuming, and people are content with a fictional image that physically never occurred, then I wonder WHY formulate an image at all? In this case, I again think that it has to do with the desire to have what others appear to have (yet the ‘others’ appearance is made too through constructed images devoid of pure truth). I think it often depicts a laziness in our society too - we want the image without the work.
I think that the truth (or rather, more or less degrees of truth) of photography [to me personally only] is dependent upon the situation in which the image occurs/purpose for which it will be used. For example; commercialism photography, magazines, and celebrity snap-shots, are all imagery in which I believe there is no truthful image. What photo falling into the hands that shaped those industries has not been photo-shopped? On the other hand, documentary, ‘lifestyle’, and snap-shots, are all categories that I hold should have more truth, less manipulation. [even as I realize they do not always]
I have to realize that digital photography and the technology available to the masses today invites a distortion of reality. But that distortion has been present since the beginning of photography, since painting, since language. The distortion does not simply come because a person did not himself/herself take an image or was present when the image was ‘taken’. But I think that we need to be honest with ourselves and with others about the ‘truth’ we are attributing to an image.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Responding to Ritchin [Chapters 1 & 2]
There is so much that can be said about the ‘truth’ of photography and how technology has stained that truth [or not]. During most readings/conversations I have so many thoughts and contradicting opinions flowing through my mind that I can never clearly determine my stance. In Ritchin’s reading however I found my thoughts mostly drawn to that of how photography affects our culture desires.
There is not an image held within magazines nor in professional websites online that has not been photo shopped. We claim that we ’know’ those images are not truly real, yet we still produce and engulf them, try to become them so much that I think we have only fooled ourselves. Ritchin speaks of photographs as ’desirents’; images existing to sell information/items that are really not of worth to him. We want those things that are projected constantly into our paths of vision. We are inundated with those models of desire which are photographs, commercials, imagery.
“Whether aware of it or not, those manipulating photographs are preparing the way for fundamental personal and societal changes….If we, like our jeans and our cars, can transition from a solid physicality into the allure of image, then we too become more likely candidates for manipulation.” [Ritchin; After Photography; pg 25]
On another note, I had a completely new revelation/thought when Ritchin spoke of a photograph as initial research, the photographer only an initial [to my understanding rather miniscule] researcher with little deciding power. As a student and beginning photographer I am used to completing all of the pre-work, leg-work, post-work, any work, for myself. Later in life I may find myself working for others to create an end product image. Large companies have teams to do this work. I may activate the shutter but someone else will hold the power and instruction to probe, pry, dissect, and modify those pixels.
Ritchin quotes Susan Sontag - “To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge - and, therefore, like power.” [Ritchin; After Photography; pg 32] But look, even the photographer [especially in today’s culture/technology] can lose that power to those directing the post production of images destined for societal consumption. Whomever holds that power, there is no doubt to me that photographic images does indeed hold tremendous power/sway over us.
There is not an image held within magazines nor in professional websites online that has not been photo shopped. We claim that we ’know’ those images are not truly real, yet we still produce and engulf them, try to become them so much that I think we have only fooled ourselves. Ritchin speaks of photographs as ’desirents’; images existing to sell information/items that are really not of worth to him. We want those things that are projected constantly into our paths of vision. We are inundated with those models of desire which are photographs, commercials, imagery.
“Whether aware of it or not, those manipulating photographs are preparing the way for fundamental personal and societal changes….If we, like our jeans and our cars, can transition from a solid physicality into the allure of image, then we too become more likely candidates for manipulation.” [Ritchin; After Photography; pg 25]
On another note, I had a completely new revelation/thought when Ritchin spoke of a photograph as initial research, the photographer only an initial [to my understanding rather miniscule] researcher with little deciding power. As a student and beginning photographer I am used to completing all of the pre-work, leg-work, post-work, any work, for myself. Later in life I may find myself working for others to create an end product image. Large companies have teams to do this work. I may activate the shutter but someone else will hold the power and instruction to probe, pry, dissect, and modify those pixels.
Ritchin quotes Susan Sontag - “To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge - and, therefore, like power.” [Ritchin; After Photography; pg 32] But look, even the photographer [especially in today’s culture/technology] can lose that power to those directing the post production of images destined for societal consumption. Whomever holds that power, there is no doubt to me that photographic images does indeed hold tremendous power/sway over us.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
ARTIST INSPIRATION
My most recent work and thoughts have been surrounded by the idea of place.
Having grown up in the same home and small town all my life there are places, buildings, and roads that are ingrained into both my past [memory] and the present as forms of these places still remain. These places that I have in mind border on an obsession as I have been trying to figure out both why places so strongly mean one thing or another to humans in general and why I am so infatuated with areas myself. I was influenced [more aesthetically than conceptually] by the Landscape imagery of Todd Hido and interior shots by Uta Barth. The three images I posted were shots of the grime, smudges, fingerprints, and water that accumulate on the one transparent plane that always separates one from one space to another. Those particles are always there but we always look through them, always look past. As I floundered with my thoughts and ideas I took a step back and simply began looking at these visual obstacles that we otherwise ignore.
http://www.toddhido.com/
Having grown up in the same home and small town all my life there are places, buildings, and roads that are ingrained into both my past [memory] and the present as forms of these places still remain. These places that I have in mind border on an obsession as I have been trying to figure out both why places so strongly mean one thing or another to humans in general and why I am so infatuated with areas myself. I was influenced [more aesthetically than conceptually] by the Landscape imagery of Todd Hido and interior shots by Uta Barth. The three images I posted were shots of the grime, smudges, fingerprints, and water that accumulate on the one transparent plane that always separates one from one space to another. Those particles are always there but we always look through them, always look past. As I floundered with my thoughts and ideas I took a step back and simply began looking at these visual obstacles that we otherwise ignore.
http://www.toddhido.com/
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