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