Fitzpatrick; Photographer's Eye Reading Response

Alex Fitzpatrick

Photographer’s Eye Review

ARTO250 / Warpinski

1/28/15

            This article starts by giving us a rundown on how the invention of the camera has changed the definition of what can be considered art and how the perception of photography has changed around us to be commonly accepted as an art form.  Before photography was able to capture a likeness of a subject in a matter of seconds only things that were dubbed worthy of remembrance were given the time and consideration to be painted.  With the camera, we saw a major shift in the subject matter from very important historical events and figures to everyday mundane objects, sometimes even junk or trash.  An object’s hidden beauty is all in the photographer’s eye, and their ability to extract and capture that beauty is what makes them artists.

            One big problem for early photographers was that sometimes a picture didn’t necessarily look like real life.  Despite this fact, the general public believed that the camera could not lie.  Eventually photographers realized that they could bring a truth to light that may have previously been hidden or hide a truth that one might be uncomfortable seeing.  Also the Thing Itself being photographed, no matter how normal, took on a special feeling once realized as a picture.

            The details one chose to include or exclude can really add to and shape the narrative of a picture.  I believe strongly that pictures can be read as both symbols and as stories.  They can be fact or fiction, depending on the details.

            Cropping and framing are one of the photographer’s most potent weapons.  The composition of a particular scene can make or break the pictures artistic integrity and worth.  The frame of the picture is an imaginary line.  It exists only in our minds.  The scenes, which get photographed, do not suddenly and conveniently end where the edge of the picture ends.  The things and people in the scenes have relationships outside of the world of the snap-shot and inversely, two objects that would normally not share any relationship can be shown to have one just by both being included in the frame of a single photo.

            Time is usually an enemy of photography.  Movement happens over time and causes images to become blurred in our pictures just as they do when moving too fast in life.  With increased shutter speeds we are now able to capture ever-smaller chunks of time, smaller even than our eyes are capable of in reality.  With larger aperture openings and slower shutter speeds we can record movement that was once inconceivably slow, such as the stars moving across the sky.  This can give photos a mystical look into the weird world of time.

            The vantage point of the photographer is another very important choice and artistic weapon that they employ.  Speaking abstractly, I feel that photographs seem to sub-consciously display a societal vantage point of the lower to upper middle class, most of the time.  Once in a while we get to see work from a photographer with a sense for shooting from outside his own preconceptions.  The camera lens is not the only lens we see through.  We cannot escape the lens of our own thoughts, belief structures, societies, and responsibilities.