27th of June 2019
Photography and reality
Read ‘Photography’ (Chapter 2) in Howells, R. (2011) Visual Culture on the OCA-Student website. Note down your own response to Howell’s arguments.
The relationship between reality and photography is a complex one. It is difficult, in the arts, to depict reality. Technically, with photography it is a given. Howells takes us through history, starting with prehistoric paintings. But photographs history is only over 150 years old. The first photography is dated back to 1827. It was known as painting with light. It has taken centuries for the techniques to come together, you need both chemistry and physics. Physics allows the creation of the image, whereas chemistry allows us to preserve said image. The physics side was born with the camera obscura. This technique has been around since the tenth century, where a dark room would have a small hole that allowed light in, this would allow images to be depicted on the wall. But they were upside down. When a lease was added to this method, the images righted themselves, this happened during the Renaissance. This then developed into a box instead of a room. But none of these images were permanent. But due to chemistry advancement during the eighteenth century, Johann Heinrich Schulze found that some chemicals were photosensitive, namely certain types of silver. A few tried to make the images permanent, some failed, but Joseph Nicephore Niepce succeeded. Niepce then worked with Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, together they made a quicker easier method to preserving an image. They became extremely popular. This technique produced an image of reality, they could not be copied either, so where unique. William Henry Fox Talbot used paper which was sensitised with silver chloride, he would place objects on the paper, these become the first contact prints. Talbot also developed the positive and negatives. This paved the way for being able to produce copies. By placing a negative image on another paper, another print could be fixed. This allowed unlimited positives to be made from one negative. It wasn’t until 1888 when Kodak created a camera that would be available to the general public. Leica went on to release their 35mm in 1925. Colour images were developed in 1935 by Kodak. But it wasn’t until 1994 when Kodak created the first digital camera, which was available to the public from 1996.
Photography were used to document reality. War photographers could document the wars, other things like social change began being recorded. Photographs “had an authenticity that fine art could never accomplished” (Sekula, p. 190). Sekula states that as the camera is a mechanical recording device, it is only possible to show what is real. This is also a reason for why photography can not be viewed as art. “The photograph does not create the drama; it just reports it. That cannot be art” (Sekula, p. 191). Roger Scruton believed that if the subject is beautiful then that is where the beauty comes from in a photograph, as against in a painting which can be beautiful regardless of its subject. Sekula argues against this, as the photographer must made choices when creating an image, a beautiful Images does not come from a beautiful subject. “The eventual photograph, then, is the result of creative choices that began at the very setting up of the tripod…A photograph, after all has formal properties that transcend its subject-matter” (Sekula, pp. 193-194). Susan Sontag also comments, “Photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings are” (Sontag, cited in Sekula, pp. 196-198). Andre Bazin does not believe that a photograph shows reality, as the very action of taking an image has liberated that image from ‘time and itself’, so it cannot show reality as it’s time has passed. It instead produced an aspect of reality.
“Photography is; a meeting of the actual and the imaginary, where each adds to, rather than detracts from, the power of the other” (Sekula, p. 200). Photographs themselves are predetermine to be interpreted ideologically. Sometimes interpreting iconography is overdone. Semiotics are important for analysing as by successfully interpreting an image, you can learn and understand its value.
Many people have analysed Scruton approach. William King believes there are two chances, based on the reasons we look at a photograph. The first would indicate Scruton is right, when “our reasons for looking at a photograph coincide with our reasons for looking at its subject-matter”, but if “we look at a photograph driven by an interest that does not entirely coincide with our interest in its subject-matter, then Scruton is wrong” (King & Sekula, p. 202). Many see this as a weak view, for example Nigel Warburton. Warburton believes that Scruton is talking about ‘ideal photography’. Warburton looks at ‘individual style’. He believes we should look deeper than what is shown. It is impossible to find the style in one image, you need a series. This involves contextualisation. A style and the artists aim will become evident. “In other words, the photograph can now be seen as a work of art” (Sekula, p. 205).
Bibliography
Howells, R. (2011) Visual Culture: A Reader. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 183-206.
Georgina's Contextual Studies 