Reflection on Photography

"Meanings are not only shaped by the functioning of our perceptual apparatus (the processing of sense data into electrical signals in our brain), but also by the ideological frameworks and beliefs, which determines our point of view. Photography is particularly problematic in this respect: we can be seduced into believing that a faithful record of appearance is actually a ‘slice of reality’. That realism is the same as reality."

 

- Richard Salkeld

 

Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Art and Photography at the University of Gloucestershire

“Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should?”

 

- Henri Cartier-Bresson, American Photographer

 

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What I actually wanted to do most with my first camera was make videos. Capturing footage was more interesting to me than taking still images. Like any other self-conscious teenager growing up, certain portraits and self-portraits of myself gave me a view of myself that I did not readily embrace as an accurate representation of who I felt I was on the inside. The still image was too definitive. I liked myself better in motion, and I preferred a blurry photo of myself more than a perfect, clear portrait.

 

As I grew older, I realized that what made me uneasy about still images was the loss of control I felt the subject had over their identity. Regardless of what the photo was of, pictures began to symbolize a trace of man exerting its power over space and time as a material form -- "the photographer takes/captures the photo!" And yet, it's also been said that photographers, like Jeff Wall, makes photographs.

 

By transferring the 3D world to 2D representations -- halting movements to frozen moments and applying frames to a fluid, and frame-less reality of happenings -- the details I started to admire and appreciate most was found within these transactions. In absence and immateriality of the photographing process, I found what I liked, but I couldn't photograph those meaningful conversations at a cafe with new and old friends in a picture alone. Such images became traces of a moment that grew almost fictional in retrospect, yet real by the proof of the image and my engagement in the event – both as subject and creator.

 

Gradually however, I started to develop a fear for the subconscious distancing that photography had on me and my relationship with others. The more intimate I grew with my camera, the less intimate I felt to those I photographed. The more I started to become identified as a photographer, the more I felt it eclipsing my identity.

 

Social media and sharing pictures made this distancing most clear to me. When I disabled my Facebook account that I began at the start of high school, I realized that I also made disappear, all the pictures I took of the 1000+ friends I had there. Though the thought made me guilty and conflicted about my relationship with others online, I realized how much I too fell into a mindless faith that the digital archive would always be there when we need it. Considering how impulsive taking pictures is – from sharing real-time happenings to remembering something we feel is important in the moment of – I started to wonder how much we cared for the memories we were representing in pictures, when the priority of their production was more-so towards instantaneous sharing and uploading on social networks. Are we taking pictures to remember, or creating memories through pictures?

 

It is difficult to express this because I feel photography, metaphorically, demonstrates the many ways humans express themselves subconsciously. I’ve always felt that taking pictures and recording videos were very natural human reactions. From civilian journalists converting the reality of trauma to surreal documentation, to tourists snapping ceaselessly away in foreign places they were traveling to for the very first time, the mass access to cameras have only confirmed that taking pictures as a response to something we encounter in the world, as well as our interest in communicating with others, is a very common, human behavior.

 

Sharing digital pictures and video online is increasingly becoming part of our everyday communication. But unlike words, which buffer our immediate comprehension with the need to read, images just bombard us with information that we simply take in and move on with. And with our world becoming increasingly saturated by images everywhere we go, our busy lives have less reasons to slow down and doubt all the photos we see. After all, even Photoshopped pictures are based from the world we live in, initially. How could it be that the more we see, the less we know? Is not seeing, believing?

 

Richard Salkeld wrote in his introductory book on approaching theory and photography that the photographer is the first person to read their pictures. Since acknowledging that there are more subliminal affects in photography, I’ve been trying to revive a film photographer’s conscience to my own practice as a modern photographer. Ultimately, I don’t feel that abandoning photography altogether is my answer. It is still a form of expression I’ve come to love, learn from, and impart information and thoughts through. It has also been, as the famous photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson was quoted to have said, an excuse to meet and come closer to people. Though I have yet to fully understand this – frankly, I do not desire to know – some photographic encounters with people and events, have had tremendous, profound influence on me and the people I’ve engaged with, beyond mere physical contact.

 

It reminds me of the responsibility that comes with being a photographer that we sometimes lose sight of. There is always a power-dynamic involved. For me, it’s important to acknowledge and understand it before, during, and after I make my pictures.

 

Despite how much photography struggles to be considered art, I feel that there is an art to photography deeper beyond their surface-level impression. This challenge that photography poses in our postmodern world, is one I personally find most enticing to pursue. At a certain point, most of the world will have been documented because it simply can be. But beyond what we can, I wonder what we can make, rather than merely take.

 

Because all of this is not something most people immediately think about when it comes to photography (and with photographers especially), I felt that it was essential for me to make this reflection and include it in my work. These photos range from a variety of personal experiences and memories that were genuine in their making, whether I knew it or not at the time. Despite the role social media may have had in encouraging their immediate presentation and distribution, I’ve returned to all my past photos and took their re-presentation as a personal project to exhibit the sequence of photos I actually want to share with others.

 

-- d.w.s.

06/11/2015