Thursday, February 9, 2012
IDEA :: Into the final project
I would like to continue exploring an idea about the space that we inhabit everyday. I am not entirely sure still what I am searching for, but I know that this time around I would like to center my images around windows [as barriers from where we exist in one instant, from that space which is outside/on the other side of that plane]. This idea [or rather focus this time around] is stemming from last term when I was so over whelmed with where I was trying to go that I had to give up and simply look. I found transparent windows and I found that they are really not transparent at all.
For this project I want to set up rules to create this body of work :: all images must be taken through a window of some sorts. I want to again get into the habit of just looking and recording. I do want to expand the subject matter beyond that which is stuck to the window however. I want to expand beyond the shallow depth of field I was using previously. I cannot exactly say that which I want to photograph, but I am accumulating ideas about travel, decay, portraits.
For this project I want to set up rules to create this body of work :: all images must be taken through a window of some sorts. I want to again get into the habit of just looking and recording. I do want to expand the subject matter beyond that which is stuck to the window however. I want to expand beyond the shallow depth of field I was using previously. I cannot exactly say that which I want to photograph, but I am accumulating ideas about travel, decay, portraits.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Responding to Ritchin [Chapter 5]
As I began to read Ritchin’s fifth chapter in ‘After Photography’ my mind immediately wandered to thoughts about some of the first war photographers and the truth of the imagery they produced:
[1855, ROGER FENTON, The Valley of Death] - http://www.museumsyndicate.com/images/4/33950.jpg
This image was a documentary photograph of the Crimean War that was enhanced by physically rolling more canon balls (than were originally present) into the scene.
[1863, ALEXANDER GARDNER, Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter] - http://photohistory.jeffcurto.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/gardner_homerebelsharpshooter.jpg
This second image was a documentary photograph from the Civil War which was enhanced by physically moving the fallen soldier and adding military props to create an image of more impact.
Photo manipulation (when those two images were created) was not what it is today, yet still those images are not completely honest about the wars they represented. If documentary war photography was not able to tell the truth in the very beginning of its existence, then how can we (in light of the digital, Photoshop, Internet world that we live in) expect them to now? I am not saying that all war photographers/photographs lie, but I am saying that the nature of war photography can be construed on so many levels that it is hard to pick out the images of truth from those that were shot or created with other intentions. Governments use imagery as propaganda, as excuse to place soldiers in other countries, as ‘proof’ of one thing or another. Photographers themselves may manipulate/compose imagery simply for shock value to gain photographic fame. Newspapers may combine text and imagery to tell a good story regardless of what was actually going on at that time and place. Finally, on the most local and accessible level, we, as photographic consumers and internet users, may arbitrarily appropriate found imagery to combine with our own sayings, wording, rumors, etc. These images are taken out of context only to be combined in another which may or may not exist. [I was using just war photography for these examples, but obviously political photographs (any imagery that gets pumped through the media to the masses) occur in exactly the same way]
I have always been torn about war photography. Even ‘true’ images (projecting a people in pain) used to help end a war were most likely used without the consent of those just devastated. Who has the right to photograph humans like such and then exploit them to the world? Why do governments get the right to broadcast certain images to prove why we need to occupy another country, yet will not allow the images that prove at what cost we are there? Why should we as the masses get to see any war imagery - will not these photos be the such a small side of the story yet our interpretations of an entire scenario will be based on those images and accompanying text (which may or may not be true)?
I have too many questions and doubts about documentary war/political photography to be comfortable believing anything these days.
[1855, ROGER FENTON, The Valley of Death] - http://www.museumsyndicate.com/images/4/33950.jpg
This image was a documentary photograph of the Crimean War that was enhanced by physically rolling more canon balls (than were originally present) into the scene.
[1863, ALEXANDER GARDNER, Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter] - http://photohistory.jeffcurto.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/gardner_homerebelsharpshooter.jpg
This second image was a documentary photograph from the Civil War which was enhanced by physically moving the fallen soldier and adding military props to create an image of more impact.
Photo manipulation (when those two images were created) was not what it is today, yet still those images are not completely honest about the wars they represented. If documentary war photography was not able to tell the truth in the very beginning of its existence, then how can we (in light of the digital, Photoshop, Internet world that we live in) expect them to now? I am not saying that all war photographers/photographs lie, but I am saying that the nature of war photography can be construed on so many levels that it is hard to pick out the images of truth from those that were shot or created with other intentions. Governments use imagery as propaganda, as excuse to place soldiers in other countries, as ‘proof’ of one thing or another. Photographers themselves may manipulate/compose imagery simply for shock value to gain photographic fame. Newspapers may combine text and imagery to tell a good story regardless of what was actually going on at that time and place. Finally, on the most local and accessible level, we, as photographic consumers and internet users, may arbitrarily appropriate found imagery to combine with our own sayings, wording, rumors, etc. These images are taken out of context only to be combined in another which may or may not exist. [I was using just war photography for these examples, but obviously political photographs (any imagery that gets pumped through the media to the masses) occur in exactly the same way]
I have always been torn about war photography. Even ‘true’ images (projecting a people in pain) used to help end a war were most likely used without the consent of those just devastated. Who has the right to photograph humans like such and then exploit them to the world? Why do governments get the right to broadcast certain images to prove why we need to occupy another country, yet will not allow the images that prove at what cost we are there? Why should we as the masses get to see any war imagery - will not these photos be the such a small side of the story yet our interpretations of an entire scenario will be based on those images and accompanying text (which may or may not be true)?
I have too many questions and doubts about documentary war/political photography to be comfortable believing anything these days.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Responding to Ritchin [Chapter 4]
Digital photography IS different than analog. There are similarities obviously, but the way in which one creates digital images and the way that viewers read and interact with them on an illuminated screen are far different than the flat physical pieces of print that analog provided. The internet provides imagery and then re-provides and re-provides and re-provides [the same image, or hundreds plus variations of essentially the same one].
All I can think about is the interacting ‘metadata’-like idea/form that Ritchin was purposing for thought. Part of me thinks yes, finally a way to embed a universal form that allows photographers to say everything they want about an image that will follow the image, linked and forever inseparable. No one would ever be able to read it the image wrong right? Wrong. This is a world of digital manipulation. To add a linked form containing all the ’truths’ of an image would invite just as much manipulation as the image does once it is put in the large web of the internet. The idea kind of gives me the same panic as I already feel about placing my photography online - how might it all be used one day (and then get shown as my doing)?
All I can think about is the interacting ‘metadata’-like idea/form that Ritchin was purposing for thought. Part of me thinks yes, finally a way to embed a universal form that allows photographers to say everything they want about an image that will follow the image, linked and forever inseparable. No one would ever be able to read it the image wrong right? Wrong. This is a world of digital manipulation. To add a linked form containing all the ’truths’ of an image would invite just as much manipulation as the image does once it is put in the large web of the internet. The idea kind of gives me the same panic as I already feel about placing my photography online - how might it all be used one day (and then get shown as my doing)?
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Responding to Ritchin [Chapter 3]
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
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