- Image as object that is easy to collect
- A way of experiencing and owning a piece of the world
- Appropriation of the thing photographed, a position of power
- The book has been the most appropriate way to preserve and maintain the essential qualities of photographs
Photographs as evidence
- To involve in an accusation of a crime
- To provide proof of a crime
- Photography professes to record reality accurately, however, it is still a subjective interpretation
- The act of photographing an image is an act of aggression
- Industrialization provides realistic uses for photography and the beginning of photography as art
The Practice of Photography
- For the most part, photography is not practiced as an art form
- Social uses such as weddings, graduations, birthdays, etc. creating a family history
- Documentation of experiences, travel and trophies such as boats, cars, etc.
- A comforting act when in unfamiliar surroundings
- Taking pictures offers a "friendly imitation" of work for workaholic cultures
- Photography becomes a voyeuristic pleasure
- The photographer is complicit with the object/event photographed, no intervention
- Society is bombarded with images
Is Photography Inherently Perverse?
- Camera is not a sexual tool
- The act of photographing a subject creates distance
- Can exploit, intrude, distort, etc.
- Fantasy of camera as a phallus, a fantasy machine
- The camera as a weapon, use language such as shoot, aim, load
- Predatory act of taking a picture steals knowledge of a person
- In East Africa, photographic safari replacing gun safari, need to protect nature instead of protected from nature
- Documentation of time
- Photographs as a fetish, magical claim to another reality as in photos of children, lovers on desk at work or in wallet
Photographing Morality
- As sexual aids, photographs are more immediate and abstract
- As a tool to drive morality, must be linked to a specific historical event
- If too general not effective in changing public opinion, must be contextual
- Can only reinforce the public's moral attitudes, build upon fledgling ones
- More memorable than film, slice of time
- Photographs effective when an event has been politically activated by name and character
- Effectiveness of shock value is contingent upon how common place the images have become
- Photos do not keep emotional charge as time passes, all photos will eventually become art
Industrialization of Photography
- Images have become ingrained into the functioning of society, ex. family as symbolic objects and police as information
- Photographs redefine realistic view of the world as techniques and information
- Images can convey a fictional reality such as the news
- Photographs reinforce the feeling of time being divided into unrelated units, denies interconnectedness
- Photographic meaning is subjective, to be objective, must be accompanied by narration
- Photographs are a semblance of knowledge and wisdom
- "... it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution."
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