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.
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