This article begins with the
question that arose with the development of photography on whether or not it
can be considered ‘art’, and discusses the conflicting values of both this new
medium and conventional painting. It then continues to discuss the five
elements that pertain to capturing the ‘truth’ in photography—‘the thing
itself’, the ‘detail’, the ‘frame’, ‘time’, and ‘the vantage point’. Each one
of these elements affects the way in which reality is perceived in a photograph,
and can either be used to manipulate or enhance the truth depending on how the photographer
utilizes them.
‘The
thing itself’ conveys how the ‘truth’ within a photograph—the message
attempting to be made—is not necessarily the same as the superficial reality of
the photograph. This concept relates to the idea that a photograph is worth a
thousand words, and I feel as though it is the element that encompasses the
four others. The result of every other element alters the outcome of ‘the thing
itself’.
The
‘detail’ element is a recording, not
an interpretation, of the clues that suggest the story in the image. This
articles plays off the notion that perhaps the best way of displaying the truth
is not to attempt to organize these small details—these ‘clues’ as they are
referred to—but to display them in the order in which they were found, and to
let their story speak for itself.
The
‘frame’ element refers to the photographer’s inevitable condition of never
being able to capture the entirety of an image. Therefore, it is the
photographer’s responsibility to choose a part of an image that will most
accurately display its overall truth.
The
‘time’ element deals with the phenomenon of time and how everything in life is
constantly changing. The article discusses how adjusting the exposure and aperture
settings on a camera can obtain different sensations of time, but can never
fully capture the eternal aspect of it. It can only capture one moment—or a
short period with the use of a longer exposure—but the never reality of time
forever.
The
‘vantage point’ element was similar to the concept of framing an image. It
refers to choosing a perspective that most accurately depicts the truth of a
moment. It can either alter the image for better or for worse depending on the
precision in which it is used.
The
main difference that I see between photography and conventional visual art—like
painting as use as an example in the reading—is that all of the skill and
precision used to create a photograph has to amount to a single moment when the
photographer takes the shot; in painting, the painter can continue to add paint
until the work is perfect. In order to readjust the moment in a photograph, the
photographer would have to reshoot an image; this is not considering the
editing capabilities of software like Photoshop. I also think that photography
has also been accused of disguising the truth in an image, a form of morphing
reality. On the contrary, I think that a painter can portray reality in
whatever form he or she pleases, and that it has not always been the truth. In
addition, Pablo Picasso was quote saying, “Art is the lie that enables us to
realize the truth.” There are many cases in which painting and photography have
both manipulated reality in order to convey a deeper truth.
Furthermore,
it is difficult to capture reality in any form of art—whether it be photography
or painting or something else entirely. No moment in life can ever be exactly
the same because the world is always changing. Therefore no photo taken can
ever fully capture the idea that we call ‘reality’. “But he also learned that
the factuality of his pictures, no matter how convincing and unarguable, was a
different thing than the reality itself.”
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