lookaround360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
BTW I believe images have little to do with what's real no matter if
they've been squeezed through the PS screen-door or left as nature
intended. Painting or drawing is better at depicting what's real than
photographs.
AZ
Build a Lookaround!
The Lookaround Book, 4Th ed.
Now an E-book.
http://www.panoramacamera.us
How do you explain that?! Is a Gainsborough landscape more real than say
a Robert Adams' image?
But maybe that's not what you mean. If so, what do you mean?
I can't draw or paint so does that leave me unable to depict what's real?
I believe a photograph is at least a TRACE of something that was for a
brief moment there. A painting is very much someone's personal
interpretation of something over a considerable period of time, and can
be incredibly difficult to penetrate. I see "reality" photographs as
very much a memory stimulant; looking back over photographs I've taken
since the late 70s triggers frequent emotional responses within me. I've
never had a painting do that - because they work in a totally different
way. Mind you, I've never had anyone's photographs affect me that way
either!
Which leads into a rarely discussed aspect of photography, that is, for
the vast majority of photographers, their images are highly personal and
therefore of tremendous value at an individual level. Barthes discussed
something along this line in his Camera Lucida when searching for a
photograph of his mother. (Or did I misunderstand him?)
Where I disagree with Alfred Tay, is the lumping of "reality" images
into some sort of photojournalism set and therefore by implication, of
little or no value. And as for the semiotics aspects, I gather that
nearly all of them have been unable to even agree that there is a
"language" in photography! Equally, although the word photograph is
derived from Photo = light and graph = drawing it is a mistake to
suggest that that is therefore its main or at least limits its meaning.
Words change their sense over the years because language is always being
adapted by its users.
Seth Taras - your work is fascinating...now how does it fit into this
debate?
I've really enjoyed everyone's responses. Thank you.
Howard
