urban ku # 32 - what might Mr. Jones think?
Thursday, February 22, 2007 at 10:04AM 
Window ice • click on photo to embiggen itIn his book, Photography: A Very Short Introduction, Steve Edwards gives an ever so brief afterword-nod to digital photography. It's a very brief, new-day's-a-comin' kind of thing in which he raises a few questions and suggests a few implications about the future of photography in the digital age.
But, the one "issue" he barely addresses is the one that interests me the most - the means of making digital photographs has been placed in the hands of every Tom, Dick and Harriet on the planet (or seemingly so). I don't think that it's a stretch to say that more photographs (1.5 zillion more?) are being made now than in any time in photographic history.
Hell, in my own house, there are now 4 digitally equipped "shooters". The wife, who was the recipient of my largesse (in the form of her first ever digitial camera) at Xmas, has probably taken more photographs since the first of the year than she has over the past 10 years. Then there's the college boy, the senior-itis girl and even little Hugo has his own digital camera (real, not a toy) and flickr site.
Pictures, pictures, everywhere.
My interest in this phenomena is simple - why? What's the deal? What is the fascination with taking pictures? Is there something in the human psyche that cries out for real-time verification of one's self and one's surroundings?
Or is it that living in a media/image saturated culture develops in one the need to be seen (literally and figuratively) as part of the media?
With all of the hoopla surrounding the truth/not truth issue regarding photography, it almost seems that for many, if not most, nothing is real unless it's photographed - see, I really was there, I really did that, that's really me. And all of this is not reserved for after-the-fact memories, it's real-time - take a picture and everyone rushes to see it on the LCD. Take a picture of Mt. Rushmore and everyone wants to immediately see the picture of it even though they're standing right in front of it.
I find it a bit weird when someone takes a photo of little Hugo and then, when viewing the LCD image mere moments later, states, "Isn't he so cute." Again, it is almost that his precence isn't enough to establish his cute-quotient, it needs to be documented.
And there's that word again - documented. Most of the shooters I am talking about are making documents not pictures.
Nevertheless, it all causes me to think that -
...Something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
Featured Comment: Sean wrote; "surely the main issue is to what degree the digital can still be regarded as photography (writing with light)... how much alteration can occur before the image is mere illustration (synthetic) rather than photograph?"
publisher's response: We're still "writing with light", but the light-sensitive substrate/material, which is still enclosed in a light-tight box behind a lens, is different. As for illustration v photograph, certainly the techniques with which one can manipulate an image are much more accessible and easier/faster to use, but...as a film-based example, are Jerry Uelsmann's photographs still photographs?
Featured Comment: Ana wrote; "I think it goes right back to the every photo is a death thing --a lot of the desire to photograph is the desire to fix history. In the normal course of events the photograph can be expected to outlast the moment and even ourselves and I think a lot of the impetus behind rushing to view the photo that was just taken is this awareness that 'this is what will be remembered'."
Reader Comments (9)
- surely the main issue is to what degree the digital can still be regarded as photography (writing with light)... how much alteration can occur before the image is mere illustration (synthetic) rather than photograph?
best, Sean
As I read this I think of the cave paintings of Lascaux. Aren't we probably hard wired to create and consume images?
The image you chose to accompany this post reminded me immediately of subatomic particles.
Is our obsession with documentation and imagery merely an effort to arrest time, to live forever? Our perception and definition of beauty depends entirely upon context, upon the frame of reference.
From Dylan to Byrne:
"Bouncing off the walls, Mr. Jones is back!"
(Sorry, couldn't resist...)
Speaking of actual photographs, I like the "window ice" photo a lot. It's one of the things you see , but don't see, in the winter. Maybe it's the juxtaposition of crystalline and organic forms, I don't know. I think it's a good one.
I think it goes right back to the every photo is a death thing --a lot of the desire to photograph is the desire to fix history. In the normal course of events the photograph can be expected to outlast the moment and even ourselves and I think a lot of the impetus behind rushing to view the photo that was just taken is this awareness that "this is what will be remembered".
Interesting point Ana. In fact, that result of capturing a moment which becomes memory is why I haven't taken many photos while raising the kids, and never owned a video camera. I wanted memories, rather than snapshots and videos that became substitutes for much larger memories and feelings.
Jerry Uelsmann's work highlights the issue (as does the work of many other artists). It is more akin to montage, a modern version of cut and past. And in their creation, as some point, the work will cease to be a photograph. Its not an easy line to draw, as Steve Edwards writes (P136):
'... for instance if an image of a motorcar is changed on a computer to a bicycle, at what point does it cease to be a photograph?'
Later, Edwards seems to draw a distinction between the photograph and the photographic: something remsembling a photograph. And, as he notes, it is a difficult line to draw. But the line is still drawn, somewhere.
Best, Sean.
Ana's and the wife's comments really resonated with me. I almost never take snapshots, because to me that interrupts the flow of events and represents an attempt to hold onto something in a way I don't wish to. Although any photograph "captures a moment in time" by the very nature of the process, the emphasis for me is not on recording, but rather on creating something new. That the photograph is also a record is still crucial: it ties my creation to the real world I care about. Another way of saying this: I want to make photographs that I would appreciate even with no memory of the time or place they were captured. I don't reject that memory by any means, but for me that's not enough reason in itself to photograph.
Steve said: "I want to make photographs that I would appreciate even with no memory of the time or place they were captured."
That remark resonated with me in an interesting way because one of the wonderful things about photographs --or any art, really-- is that the work may have no relation to my personal experience and yet when I see them they become symbolic of a time and place in my life. They're like a passage in a book that was written by someone else and yet upon reading they encapsulate perfectly something in my own experience.