Suburban Dreams 19
Unfortunately, Flickr is not the best medium to produce any sort of serial ideas. Most people are looking for single images and never read the descriptions. Many people simply post their photos without so much as a title or any thought for context. Fair enough then, I am a fish out of water. By now you must have realised I am on about something much more than producing a "good shot".
But for those who do care about these things, and are not rushing to fave the next image that takes your fancy, let me share a few ideas from Susan Sontag about what photography can mean for us. I don't agree with all her conclusions in the book, but that said, "On Photography" (1971) and Roland Barthes' "Camera Lucida" (1980) still remain the best introductions to the meaning of photography in our modern age.
"In a world ruled by photographic images, all borders ('framing') seem arbitrary. Anything can be separated, can be made discontinuous from anything else, all that is necessary is to frame the subject differently. Photography reinforces a nominalist view of social reality as consisting of small units of an apparently infinite number - as the number of photographs that could be taken of anything is unlimited. Through photographs, the world becomes a series of unrelated, freestanding particles; and history, past and present, a set of anecdotes...The camera makes reality atomic, manageable and opaque. It is a view of the world which denies interconnectedness, continuity, but which confers on each moment the character of a mystery. Any photograph has multiple meanings..." (p.22-23).
Now this is where Sontag gets very interesting!
"The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: 'There is the surface. Now think - or rather feel, intuit - what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks this way.' Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy." (p.23).
The problem most viewers of photographs have is that we have been so trained to think LITERALLY (this is a picture of graffiti), that we fail to make the necessary connections with deeper aspects of meaning.
- Why did I photograph this in fading light?
- Why has the building been abandoned?
- Is it beautiful?
- What was the graffitist trying to do?
The questions are endless.
But I've visited this sort of thinking before in discussing the Phenomenology of Photography.
www.flickr.com/photos/luminosity7/52536790756/in/datepost...
www.flickr.com/photos/luminosity7/52534433756/in/datepost...
The camera can be many things, but we often forget it can be a philosophical weapon to make us THINK.
Suburban Dreams 19
Unfortunately, Flickr is not the best medium to produce any sort of serial ideas. Most people are looking for single images and never read the descriptions. Many people simply post their photos without so much as a title or any thought for context. Fair enough then, I am a fish out of water. By now you must have realised I am on about something much more than producing a "good shot".
But for those who do care about these things, and are not rushing to fave the next image that takes your fancy, let me share a few ideas from Susan Sontag about what photography can mean for us. I don't agree with all her conclusions in the book, but that said, "On Photography" (1971) and Roland Barthes' "Camera Lucida" (1980) still remain the best introductions to the meaning of photography in our modern age.
"In a world ruled by photographic images, all borders ('framing') seem arbitrary. Anything can be separated, can be made discontinuous from anything else, all that is necessary is to frame the subject differently. Photography reinforces a nominalist view of social reality as consisting of small units of an apparently infinite number - as the number of photographs that could be taken of anything is unlimited. Through photographs, the world becomes a series of unrelated, freestanding particles; and history, past and present, a set of anecdotes...The camera makes reality atomic, manageable and opaque. It is a view of the world which denies interconnectedness, continuity, but which confers on each moment the character of a mystery. Any photograph has multiple meanings..." (p.22-23).
Now this is where Sontag gets very interesting!
"The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: 'There is the surface. Now think - or rather feel, intuit - what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks this way.' Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy." (p.23).
The problem most viewers of photographs have is that we have been so trained to think LITERALLY (this is a picture of graffiti), that we fail to make the necessary connections with deeper aspects of meaning.
- Why did I photograph this in fading light?
- Why has the building been abandoned?
- Is it beautiful?
- What was the graffitist trying to do?
The questions are endless.
But I've visited this sort of thinking before in discussing the Phenomenology of Photography.
www.flickr.com/photos/luminosity7/52536790756/in/datepost...
www.flickr.com/photos/luminosity7/52534433756/in/datepost...
The camera can be many things, but we often forget it can be a philosophical weapon to make us THINK.