Why Does Photography Exist?

This is an absolutely huge question to ask, because photography does not exist as one simple, uncomplicated practice. The camera and photography operates in many different contexts, including but limited to medicine, law and fashion. Photography is used to take images of crime scenes and these are relied upon  as evidence in order to determine what crime was committed and who is responsible. In fashion, photography is used to display the product in use and to make it as appealing to the viewer as possible. Eadward Muybridge used photography in a scientific context to prove that when a horse gallops, there is a moment when all four feet leave the ground.

For my research project, I will be focusing on photography in a social context, examining the role of the practice for the everyday individual. But first I need to establish why the practice of photography actually exists in the first place, before it was absorbed into other disciplines and daily rituals. Andre Bazin, writing in 1990 has established an argument reasoning the existence of photography in ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’. Bazin identifies the the humans as a species are constantly focused on the preservation of life, particularly in the Ancient Egyptian Era. The predominate attempt at the preservation of life is to produce a representation of it, in order to avoid what Bazin calls ‘a second spiritual death’ (Bazin 1990: 6). This second spiritual death involves the creation of a lasting representation, so despite the physical body of the subject disappearing from the Earth, there is still a recognisable visual representation that remains as evidence that the subject has lived. This is where the practice of photography is relevant, because aside from the other art forms such as painting, sculpture and sketching, photography provides a highly realistic representation. According to Andre Bazin however, photography remains separate from the other art forms, because there is no visible evidence of the human in the creation of the image. In art you can see the brush strokes of the artist, in sculpture you can see whether the artist has shaped the material, but in photography the machine is solely responsible for the process. Bazin states the photography benefits from this absence of man, which means it can be considered as an objective practice.

With the help of Andre Bazin, I have been able to establish a reasoning as to why the practice of photography exists, however when reading ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, I have identified some problematic areas. Most specifically Bazin identifying photography as an objective practice; this statement has some truth when considering photography in areas such as medicine or law, where the practice is heavily regulated and standardised in order to produce consistent, reliable visual material. However in a social context, there are no rules or regulations surrounding the practice of photography, the owner of the camera is relatively free to photograph what they want. There are ethical concerns surrounding photographing certain material, however the individual can choose whether or not to abide by these moral suggestions. The notion that a photograph tells the truth has partially framed the practice of social photography, because photography has been used to document the life and family of the individual. The viewers of these images believe the content, because it appears to be telling them a simple, uncomplicated message (for example, this person was standing in front of this monument) however the person producing the image still made decisions when framing the scene.

Despite this blog post appearing to ask an unanswerable question, using Andre Bazin’s ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’ has enabled me to explore why photography actually exists. Bazin’s concept of the second spiritual death is actually really interesting and certainly could explain the phenomenon of selfies, however the images made by the users on Instagram are not always of the self. Therefore there must be a reason behind this deviation of content, or perhaps I should be considering the representation of the self in a more abstract way.

 

References:

Bazin, A. (1960) ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’. Film Quarterly 13 (4) 4-9

Journey To School

As part of our Summer preparing for third year we were told to ‘bring me a story of your journey to school’, and that was all the direction we were given. I’m assuming this is to preapare us for the format of Phonar where we will be given weekly tasks to complete and the brief could be as loose as this one. It was good to engage with a brief again to try and define what it would mean to me.

I live in a small village and my mum used to walk me to and from school every day, I can remember the route so clearly as visual markers in my head. As most young children do I had an overactive imagination and it was sparked by different stages in the route. With this in mind I wanted to create a set of photos that would match with the memories  that I have of my journey to school.

At first I started thinking I could use Google Maps to take these photographs and I played around with taking screenshots from Google Maps and using some HDR editing however after editing some of the images I felt that this wasn’t suitable for my idea. I knew that to connect with the images and memories I would have to take the photographs myself and relive those memories walking to school. I set out the next day and took my camera with me to try and capture the images I would want to use.

I made a conscious effort to shoot from a lower vantage point, either bending down a bit or holding the camera in line with my waist to try and replicate the view point that I would have seen the journey from as a child. I also included some close up photographs to try and emphasise how vivid but scattered some of the memories are to me; some are complete scenes whereas some of them are just fragments.

I then went home and uploaded the photographs to my laptop to start looking and editing them down to a final number, I settled on ten in the end because it’s a good rounded number and my story would be succinct but still with a sufficient amount of photographs to create the idea of a story. The next step was choosing how to edit them into finished pieces to go in the series; to associate the photographs with the idea of memories I chose to crop them into squares and created a stylised border to replicate that of a polaroid print. Polaroid prints in today’s culture are associated with the idea of memories, perhaps most commonly linked to holidays and parties. In addition to this at the time where the Polaroid camera was first introduced it was  one of the means to capture the memories of the average family.  In addition to this editing I also use some HDR toning to try and manipulate and bring out the detail in these images; I believe that by changing the images slightly they become more like a memory, matching the idea of what we have in our mind rather than reality.

With the images created and edited I then had to match them with memories in my head, and think of a way to put them together in visual form. I decided to use some simple text on the bottom of the images in the bigger part of the border to define the images and link them to each memory in my head. I wouldn’t explain the memory fully however the phrase would instantly remind me of the part of the journey it referred to. Sequencing the images was not hard at all, it simply went in chronological order of when I took the photographs as this was the only way to portray the journey to school properly.

The full set of images can be seen in the gallery however I wanted to provide a bit of incite behind each photograph to read if anyone wanted to know further details; if these photographs were up in an exhibition I would detail the following descriptions on a card with my artist statement. This can be seen below the images:

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1. Outside my house there is a pattern of bricks, the ordered layout always made me think of soldiers marching together in harmony and each brick was a footprint.

2. On a green round the corner there grew patches of clovers, I used to scan the ground every day to try and find that lucky four leaf clover, I’m still searching.

3. I’m a superstitious girl and I don’t like treading on any crack or line in the pavement, in this case I used to imagine these cracks were canyons I could fall down.

4. On a short cut there is sandy ground and there were always marks left there for me to track, pretending they were endangered animals that I could save.

5. Not all memories are pleasant, I was once given the fright of my life when I was walking on a low garden wall and the owner of the house shouted out the window, every time I walk past I can still picture her face in the window.

6. There were some walls I could walk on, and I used to pretend I was walking over this great chasm with only a rope to tread on.

7. The pink house always stands out in my mind as a marker to cross the road, perhaps one of the only times I looked up and ahead in the journey before falling back into daydreams.

8. One of my favourite memories was when I used to pretend I was a horse taking each step as a show jump, my mum used to tell me off for running however I had the perfect excuse.

9. There was always one part of the journey I didn’t like and that was walking past the scary alley, something about the shadows made me feel uneasy.

10. The journey would end and the school day begins, I always remembered to meet my mum near the steps to complete the journey.

 

Reflection:

Having almost completed the Phonar module now I felt it was essential to go back and reflect on the first task I completed without knowledge on what the module would be about. My approach and ideology was really quite interesting looking back, I unknowingly referenced Stephen Mayes and the developing experiential form of photography through the concept of the Polaroid. In today’s society Snapchat could be considered as the digital replacement of the Polaroid, facilitated through the instantaneous nature of digital photography. The relationship between the image and memory is something that is really interesting and is a concept we explored when we discussed the nature and narrative of photo albums. Photography fulfils the individual’s need for representation and the preservation of memories however does the ease of photography encourage a certain disregard for capturing and remembering the memories that really matter? In analogue photography the individual would have to prioritise each moment in their life in accordance to importance as there were only a limited number of shots available i a roll of film. In digital photography we have been liberated from this limitation, however has this dismantled the concept of preserving memory in photography? Can the experiential medium of photography still be considered as capturing and keeping memories?