A History Of...

A response to the documentaries and the reading given for the Photography Studio course:

As photography has progressed over time, it has changed the way we interact with one another, from the professional perspective to the integration of the family photo up until today’s art community of photography and the digital age. First beginning as a thing for the elite, photography was granted the ability to reach the “masses” with the invention of the roll film and now today has finally, truly, reached the majority, with things such as profile pictures and constantly updating photo albums on the internet. Through the documentaries we watched and the essay we read, we have been exposed to this progression of photography and have been given the chance to see how this evolution has brought us to what we create today.
In the first series of the documentary they discuss the invention of photography, starting with the camera obscura. When I first began photographing, the camera obscura what the first tool we learned. I built my own small scale version with card board, black ink, duct tape, and aluminum foil. The camera projects the image outside of the pinhole reversed and onto the paper, making the tiny hole in the wall, or in my case, the hole in the foil, the first glimpse at the use of a lens. Watching the first section of the documentary introduced me to new and old concepts and the intertwining of photography with romanticism. It became a way to capture the perfect moment and create the perfect memory. The rich would sit straight forever, with their finest apparel, in hopes to create a photo that would preserve their status and appeal. As we look through the various photos, they seem more to me like they are creating their own death masks, to be harbored after they leave, than their treasures to be placed on the wall. As I work on my own projects, the idea of the frozen perfection slowly becomes more enticing to me, integrating with my love for the family photo.
The second part of the documentary discussed the boom of the family photo, a type of photography that I love. With the invention of the roll film and cheap processing, anyone became able to take a photo. Photography developed outside of the traditional formal qualities and images that related to the masses began to be produced. The artist that I love the most from this section of the series is Larry Sultan, a photographer who is most well known for his work and focus on his parents, using color to accentuate the space in which they live. This part of the documentary was the most important to me, as it closely relates to my senior project and the validity that the art community sees in the family photo.
Watching the third part of the film series introduced the audience to what it is like to compete in the world of photography. The first documentary mentioned that photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent, but the hardest medium in which to be original. This has never seemed so apparent as it does with this last film. As we watched the most famous image being auctioned off and the largest prints being constructed out of several pages of paper, compiling the only piece an artist may make, I began to realize that, if I want to make it as a photographer, inventiveness is a trait that I will want to covet and nourish. People can try as they might to be the next photographer but, in order to do so, one must truly have the craftsmanship it takes along side their creative nature, helping one to produce images that mean something to them, but also can be related to others.
The paper we were asked to , titled “After Photography”, moved beyond the art world and into the “masses” of today. When photography first became accessible, it was via the roll film, but I can imagine that Kodak could have never expected the next round of accessibility to be as large scale as it is today. The reading produced many interesting points relating to the boom of digital photography, from the lingo we use to the way we post our photos. One of the interesting facts I pulled from this reading was the efforts being made to make the transition for traditional individuals more gentle, using words such as “paint” and web “pages’ in the digital realm. In the space of the digital, we are able to look at where we are now and where we might be in ten steps, we can watch in an instant as photos from the night before pop up, helping us to relive the experience as we are sitting in the classroom. The ideas from this paper made me feel both more uncomfortable about the appearance of digital photography and more relaxed to its existence, as at least it is being acknowledged as a forced shift. As the paper puts it, “what we are witnessing today is an evolution in media”, and regardless that it is not my favorite; I must be competent in its affect if I am to pursue photography any further. A part of the reading that spoke out the most to me is the idea that the digital realm of photography flattens the experience even further than before. I am constantly being called out by friends and family for shooting pictures during celebrations or every day life, putting them on the spot and removing me from interaction. Now that we have made a camera that produces your image instantly, it not only removes the photographer but it removes the subject, constantly hearing after the click of the shutter how funny an image is, then passing around the camera for everyone to see how funny it is, then hearing comments about how one friend wasn’t looking or how their hair is a mess, and finally starting the cycle over again with a request to re-shoot. Many a time I have been at a party, camera in hand, and have had someone tap me on the shoulder or pull on my skirt asking to have a specific photo taken, and, usually, I cannot help but feel anxious and annoyed at the act because it is forcing me to help someone create their farce. They sit with girls that would never touch them unless they were drunk and with perfectly applied makeup and dazzling smiles so that, once my shutter sounds, they will know that their opportunity to be seen on Facebook as how they want others to view them.
As I have watched the evolution of photography and read about the way we use the photo today, I cannot help but feel frustrated and curious as to what might happen next. Although the digital realm has its advantages, such as documentary photography and impact photography, I worry about how its mass appeal will leave behind those who cling to film. If we progress at this rate, soon their will be no darkrooms and no need to produce the rolls of film that made photos so appealing to the people in the first place, leaving me high and dry and re-evaluating my place in the evolution of photography.

Artist Lecture 2: Dr. Andrea Giunta

“The Politics of Representation: Art and Human Rights in Latin America”

Dr. Giunta is an art historian and she talked about artists and exhibitions that deal with missing persons and the search for family members who have disappeared. She explained how this is a social problem and it is very personal for the victims, the family left behind, and that the people at fault have not been punished. Pictures in the newspaper are like memorials of the missing because they remind people of the event. The missing is a popular theme in Latin American art.

In one exhibition she described, pictures of the faces of the missing were displayed. They reached a different audience than the newspapers. The pictures in the paper were seen by others around the time of the disappearance, but the exhibition was seen by the next generation, possibly the children of the missing. In fact, three young people found picture of their parents and therefore reestablished their identities. They were no longer just children without parents, but had found out who their parents are.

Artist Gustavo Germano retook the family photographs that appeared in missing persons ads in the newspapers. He placed the family members in the same positions and left a space where the missing person was, marking their absence. This forced the families to relive the original photograph, but without their loved one. The absence in the picture represents the absence in their lives and reliving it may be like losing the person again. Dr. Giunta showed the two pictures side by side and it had a powerful effect. In the original, the missing person is still there and alive. When I see a missing person sign, I think it is sad, but I do not consider that he or she is gone forever. There is still hope when you can see them. Germano’s pictures show the reality that the person may be gone forever.

Another work of art involved many people working together to remember the missing. People dressed in black and stood in a tracing of the face of a missing person. The movement and life of the living bodies “granted new life” to the missing people, who may never be found. This action symbolically brought back the missing. They are alive in the memories of the living bodies and this memory is physically manifested in the form of the missing person’s face. In addition to remembering the missing, Dr. Giunta points out, that the art and monuments also call for the trial and punishment of the people responsible.

Mirta Kupferminc - Artist Talk 2

The Skin of Memory: Space of Repression and Expression

Mirta Kupferminc’s presention was of her artworks that are a combination of video installations, photography, and embroidery. In her works, she tends to juxtapose the natural with dreamlike scenes, with an aim to educate, communicate, and pass on a legacy.

Kupferminc is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and attempts to illustrate loss, displacement and renewal as a path to healing in her “La Piel de la Memoria” installation. During the Holocaust, prisoners received numbered tattoos at the Auschwitz concentration camp as a way for identification purposes. The prisoners were called and had to respond to these numbers. The installation invites as well as requires the viewer’s interaction with the piece. As the visitors entered the space, they are given a henna tattoo or stamped as a way to be categorized whilst those that wore something red would get numbers written on their hands similar to the Auschwitz prisoners. Even though this was an interactive, attention-grabbing portion to have in her installation, I would have liked to have known why those in red had the numbers. The only conclusion I came up with was Kupferminc used the color red to signify blood and the amount of blood that was loss at these camps.

Within the installation were two huge photographs that tied into the art piece. The first image is of her 86 year old, Auschwitz survivor, Argentinean mother with the Holocaust tattoo, and the other image of an Argentinean musician with tattoos all over his arms. The fact that she chose to have these two images creates a sort of juxtaposition because her mothers tattoo was enforced on her, and became part of her identity that she chose not to have it removed but in fact is seen as a reminder of to the world not to forget the Holocaust. In contrast to the musician whose tattoos were by choice, and a collection of words, images, symbols of things he likes/wanted to remember, and therefore decided to permanently depict them on his body. Through these two images, we definitely see Kupferminc’s titled piece “The Skin of Memory” come to life.

Heather Harvey - Artist Talk 1

Professor Harvey’s artworks brought a fresh look to installations in my eyes. This is because she creates installations directly on the wall, using the same materials the wall is made of, and thereby delicately transforming the walls from an architectural space to something much unexpected and sometimes very bizarre but very interesting. Harvey approaches her work like poetry by using layered meanings and hidden symbolism. I got to experience this whilst taking her drawing class this semester because she always encourages us to add layering within our drawings whether it’s through shading or of the drawn objects; the layering tends to suggest supplementary meanings. Her connection with poetry is because of the sounds and vowels and consonants that the poets use whilst as an artist, she uses paints and texture and materials that define her work.

Professor Harvey described her present works as existing somewhere between painting, sculpture, and drawing. Some of her concepts behind her works include looking at the day to day lives of human interaction, observing the “blueprints” to something and how it was designed, doing something that you’re not suppose to do to experience a new/different side,
A few of her interests consist of the natural world and our roles in it, languages because she explained everything has its own language not just cultures, therefore to fully understand or experience something, we need to try to recognize what it is.

Two works of hers that I found intriguing is Hole Drawing (Smith Chart), Holes in wall, and paint and Beneath, Behind. The first is because the holes reveal the history of the wall and the things that have happened to that wall such the various paints that have been painted over the wall, and how the layers depict times gone by. At the same time the holes present absence, and loss of the wall. Harvey’s second artwork raises my curiosity about what could possibly be lurking behind the walls or underneath the floor. The different forms that she has expanding and trying to break out from the walls are very mysterious.

Through her artworks, Harvey more or less wants to explore what is known, and what is not known, and I find that very exciting.

Final Blog

To discuss what Photography means to me in today’s world is rather difficult to approach. Photography spans a wide range of topics from those that are artistic to those that document and there are many photographs that fall anywhere along this spectrum. To me, photography is a way to show an audience something in a way that they might not see it. A photograph works by capturing an instance in a moment of time, but there is much more to it than that. The image itself is not just a captured instant; it is a crop of that instant. The camera can only take what is in the frame; the rest of the scene may matter (in which case it is up to the viewer to project), or it may not (in which rest of the scene outside the frame may be forgotten entirely). Because of this, I believe that photography derives entirely from intention. It is the intention of the photographer to cause a reaction in the viewer.

Ritchin makes the concept of intention very clear in the seventh chapter of his book when he describes how “the digital” is commonly used to create a reaction. He describes how images of famines in Sahel brought about movements to end starvation and determine the potential causes of the draught. He expands on how images of Tranoble raised support for the families living there and brought about efforts to relocate them. Much of this chapter deals with photojournalism and the photograph as a document. Ritchin posits that the role of the media is being phased out by amateur photographers who are more involved in a photograph because they are members of the community they portray. Intension spans the boundaries of photography whether it be artistically driven or produced primarily to document.

Ritchin states “Wars, sports events, weddings, graduations and even funerals are staged.” This statement interested me because most of the photography I have produced has been staged. I have always approached photography with an intention to make viewers see what I want to show them. I want to make the inanimate seem animate. I stage scenes so that I can create a story, a concept, or a feeling. I make the decision of what I want to be viewed just as any other photographer does, amateur or professional. The picture is not in the hands of the viewer because photographer directs the viewer were to look. The intention of the photographer is what drives the picture and determines how it is framed. The photographer determines when to take the shot. The photographer also determines what shots he wants others to see. It is for this reason that I think all photography is in some way staged.

In the Genius of Photography documentary we watched similar claims are made by Larry Sultan’s father. In the picture Dad on Bed Larry’s father is dressed up seated on a bed. What fascinated me about the picture was Larry’s father’s reaction to the image. He told Larry that it wasn’t him (the father) on the bed all dressed up with nowhere to go, it was Larry. This was an interesting observation. The father suggest that Larry’s intention was to show his father on the bed, but really it reflected according to Larry’s dad, Larry on the bed. To everyone but Larry’s father, the intention of the shot is pervaded through the image. Luckily for me most of the things I photograph can’t talk afterwards.

Photography, as explained through the BBC’s program, developed from the camera obscura. The original use of the camera obscura was to help artists be able to sketch a scene more realistically. The image of the camera obscura was finally captured with Daguerre’s Daguerreotype and William Henry Fox Talbot’s calotype process. With the invention of photography being grounded in reality, its reputation for depicting the objective truth has carried it a long way throughout its course. Ritchin claims “Despite the variety of approaches, photography has achieved the paradoxical credibility of a subjective, interpretive medium that has simultaneously been deemed reliable and ultimately useful as a societal and personal arbiter.” (Pg 19) This is why I feel that photography’s realism is grounded in intention alone. Because people believe what they see, and photographs are a way to make them see, and the intention of the photographer determines how the image is staged or taken and therefore seen, the intention is the only thing that’s absolute. Phew, does that make sense?

For example, in 1934 Robert Kenneth Wilson’s 1934 image “The Surgeon’s Photograph” really shook things up especially in Loch Ness.

Here Wilson has staged his image. Everything about it is determined by him: the grain in the image, the silhouette, the frame, the water. For all we know it could have been taken in his bath tub. His intension was to make people believe that he had photographed the Loch Ness Monster. Is it the Loch Ness Monster? Of course not, it is a model. Why did so many people believe that it was the Loch Ness Monster, because Wilson’s intention was to make them believe. His intention was to stage the picture as such to draw that specific reaction. People believe what they see and he made them see a monster. Essentially his intention was to conceal the artifice of the picture he has taken.

Photography today in many cases is used as a tool for making people, to use a phrase coined by Sammy Coleridge, suspend their disbelief. This is much easier for people to do with photography, than it is in literature (which is what he was referring to). People because of photography’s history want to believe what they see.

Even more recently than Wilson’s photograph, people have been pushing these expectations. The Genius of Photography examines Cindy Sherman and Post Modernism. Colin Westerbeck claims about postmodernism “in a sense it negates the idea of portraiture, the idea that you can dress up and go to a studio and somehow reveal your strength of character, or your inherent humanity or whatever.” Sherman becomes whoever she wants to be and questions the idea that a picture can represent a person. She brings subjectivity to the forefront in her images. Magritte did this with his famous painting:

The caption means “This is not a pipe”. It is not a pipe. It is a painting.

My intention in this final project is similar to both Magritte and Sherman. I want to show the artifice behind the photograph by a making it obvious that my image was staged. I intend to skew it's interpretation. I want to make my photograph a photograph of conflicting intentions; to combine the serious (which oftentimes people attempt to stage) with the type of snapshots that are commonly used on the internet today that people feel represent themselves (which are almost always staged). Primarily those types you find on Facebook. It will be projected for this reason, and of course to show the versatility of the digital medium of photography in today’s age. Ceci n'est pas une suicide

Artist Lecture 1: Mirta Kupferminc

Mirta Kupferminc’s lecture was titled. “The Skin: Space for Repression and Expression”. In her work, she explores the similarities between traditional Hungarian embroidery and tattooing and also between the tattoos of Auschwitz survivors and modern tattoos. The tattoos of the survivors were identification numbers that initially meant nothing to them, while modern tattoos are a choice and a decoration. The survivors’ tattoos symbolized a loss of identity, but over time, they came to be important. Kupfermincs research revealed that the number comes to belong to them because they had to identify with it and they would not be the same person without that experience. Her work is very personal. She includes her mother and father’s life experiences and aspects of her Hungarian heritage. Her parents immigrated to Argentina from Hungary after surviving the Holocaust.

“La Piel de la Memoria” (“The Skin of Memory”) is an installation, which includes photography, painting, video, and interaction with the visitors. On one wall, she has a giant video of people walking around and two pictures in front: one of her mother, who is an Auschwitz survivor and one of a young Argentinean man with tattoos. Another wall contains etchings, paintings and photographs of the same theme. She provides a way for the visitors to experience discrimination by giving everyone a stamp reading, “The Skin of Memory”, except for people dressed in red. The people in red get a henna tattoo of a number instead, while everyone else gets to choose a tattoo design. I found this part of the installation to be most interesting because she is not just showing her art, but she is forcing people to experience it. This makes her artwork more powerful, because people will understand and appreciate the ideas behind it, not just the aesthetic of it.

She also showed a video called, “El Nombre y El Numero” (“The Name and the Number”). She told us to just watch and “feel first and figure out after.” It was painful to watch some parts of it. In one part, she is threading a needle with red string through a thin fabric that looks similar to skin. She is writing her fathers name with the thread. In another part, she is poking the skin-like fabric with a needle with ink on the end. She is tattooing a number. Our view is from the inside of the skin until she reveals what she had been writing. She has put us inside the skin of the survivors and says she wants us to connect with their experience. It works, because it looks painful to me. At the end of the video is a scene of women embroidering a blanket, including Mirta, her mother and other relatives. This part represents the transmission of culture and tradition from on generation to the next.

She said she struggled with the thought that she was exposing her mother for the sake of art. Her mother told her that nothing she makes can be as strong as what she survived. For the book project, I had these same thoughts, but the person I was photographing also reassured me. Still, I did not feel comfortable sharing everything. Maybe it is because I would not want to be exposed at all or because I have not had similar experiences. Kupferminc points out that there is a difference between real life and art and that art helps us to think about reality.

Genius of Photography and After Photography

The Genius of Photography documentary shows how the world was changing during the time that photography was invented and it continues to change today. Photography was part of the technological advancement of the time, along with transportation, and communication. Photography has changed the way we see the world and contributed to globalization by allowing people to see new parts of the world without going there. It is interesting that photography has also been used to save cultures and places that have been integrated or destroyed by a quickly changing world. In the field of anthropology, the look and traditions of disappearing cultures have been saved in the documentary photographs, along with written observations.
However, the documentary also points out that photography cannot save people because pictures do not replace the person. The photographs are just memories, which only save the image of a person. Once the person is gone, they can still be seen, making their image, not them, immortal.

Before reading After Photography, I had never thought about how much the internet can change the meaning and impact of photographs. I had only thought about how looking at a picture on a computer screen was different from looking at it in a book and I preferred the book. Now, I realize the positive side of publishing photographs on the internet. Ritchin points out that the media has many filters and their main goal is to please viewers or customers. The internet provides a space without filters, where people can share information that would not make it through the filters of main-stream media.
In particular, documentary photography is subject to rejection by the media. Ritchin’s example was eye-opening. The media is obsessed with images and stories that shock or scare people into continuing to watch their show or read their magazine. If not this, than they want images that will make people feel comfortable with themselves. The photographs his friend took, did not fit into one of these categories because they were too depressing and not shocking enough. Only later, were they accepted for display in a museum, but it was under the idea that they were art. Despite the filters photographers must deal with, many have helped change the world by showing people the reality of others’ suffering.

“…the photograph created new realities. Part of the problem in distinguishing them is realizing that for many of us the world is largely envisioned, even in the absence of a camera, as photographic (Ritchin, 21).”

Today, we do not even have to look at the real world to see things that exist within it. For example, we can look at the stars through a phone with a Google Sky Map. Even when we cannot see the stars, the Google map can show us, through the walls of a house or during the daytime. At every special occasion, event, party, or family gathering, someone is usually taking pictures. People get dressed and ready with the intention of trying to look acceptable for the camera. When a particularly good, funny or characteristic picture is taken, people deem it worthy of being a facebook profile picture. With social networking sites, we do not even have to meet or see someone to know them. The profile picture takes the place of the reality because it becomes the image of the person, instead of an actual memory of what he or she looks like.

“We exist in the other and the other in us. The web…allows us to better advance the media cycle so that it does not end with me, but can be conceived to include a larger conception of we. And with that amplified sense of ourselves comes new responsibilities (Ritchin, 133).”

The internet has connected the world in ways never possible before. We can see and learn about the world from our home computer or our phone. New information is always available and it is available much longer than print sources. Art, science, and other fields have a wider and more diverse audience. More people can look at photographs, which can then have a larger impact on the world. I think the responsibilities that Ritchin is talking about are passing on the information we find and taking part in causing change in the world. When we see people suffering, we have a responsibility to try to help them. The internet gives us more to see and connects us to more people.

Source: Fred Ritchin. After Photography.