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.