Reading Responses

Though some of the language was perhaps too "colorful" at times (so much so that you would get lost in their metaphors or descriptions) and the ideas somewhat repetitive, I found the readings surprisingly insightful and intriguing. Each of the articles took similar approaches to the concept of photography but then the details and direction of focus for each one of them was uniquely its own.

John Szarkowski's “The Photographer's Eye”

John Szarkowski writes about the impact that the invention of the camera, and thus photographs, had on the art world. He says that photographs cannot satisfy the old standards of art. He explains this with the notion that paintings are tangible products that are made while photographs are taken. Whether the photo was taken out of luck or skill, Szarkowski says that photographs were a “massive assault on our traditional habits of seeing.” As the camera developed it became more convenient for the average person to simple pick it up and shot snapshots of anything and everything they came across without a second thought. I particularly found this reading interesting because I have always been a bit skeptical about photography being true art. Photography seems to be a gray, fuzzy line between artistic and simply documentation. But I guess that brings up an interesting point that, Isn’t all art documentation of some sort? Doesn’t artwork, whether a photo, a painting, or a sculpture, express a statement? I guess the reason I am hesitant to consider it “a work of art” is because how universal and easy it is to produce a photograph. Sure, there are complicated printing processes and fancy camera settings, but ultimately a 4-year-old could produce photographs. But, as the phrase goes, the value is in the eye of the beholder.

Susan Sontag's “On Photography”

                “Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood”

                In this excerpt, Susan Sontag, like John Szarkowski, talks about the universal idea of a photograph and photograph in general. She says that, unlike paintings or writings that interpretations of the real world, “photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire.” She also explains, however, that a photograph is an image taken of a specific subject and can be scaled, cropped, retouched, and distributed. They can be stored in books to preserve them or compiled in films. But she argues that by making them a moving series with an order and specific time duration, the photographs lose their collectability. She mentions that before photography had a purpose there was no profession that used it and so there could be neither experts nor amateurs. The industrialized, as she called it, of photography gave it a purpose and thus brought it into the light as potentially a new artistic form and medium. This reading was a bit more philosophical than the first one in terms of its views on photography. It made me think of photography in ways that I hadn’t considered it before. I like the concept that photography is the essence of a single moment.

               

Roland Barthes 'Camera Lucida'
               

                Roland Barthes discusses how photography is matter of authentication, which, Barthes states, exceeds the power of representation. Taking the word photograph in the most literal Latin translation, Barthes says it should read: an image reveal by the action of light. Roland also mentions how a photograph is most natural in its black and white form and that color is a cosmetic applied to the surface as an after effect. I disagree with this idea because I think some pictures are absolutely glorious in their colored form. Additionally, the world is an environment of colors – the various interactions of hues and shades comprise our very visual atmosphere. I do however like the statement that says a photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only and for certain what has been. I also could really relate to the idea that a photo is certainty. And by this the author refers to a photo taken of him that he cannot for the life of him remember when or where it was taken. However, simply because it actually was taken he knew it had to have happened. I feel this same way with some of the childhood photos my parents kept from when I was a young. To a certain extent, I only remember the memory because it is in a photograph and my brain has accepted it as something that happened even though I have no concept of what happened before or after that single moment in the picture.