The camera certainly has a privileged relationship with us, documenting our lives accompanying us on holidays, trips, events chronicling childhood histories, are an essential piece of equipment ‘An event known through photographs certainly becomes more real than it would have been if one had never seen the photographs’ (Sontag, 1978:20)
Since Joseph Nicéphore Niépce produced the first known photograph of a vague view from the window of his study in 1826, our lives have been dramatically altered. Because of the camera both analog ‘chemical’ and digital, it is now feasible for us to see places, people and objects without even going to the destination of these focuses. We can receive all of the evidence from the photograph as if we were there.
Photographs have consistent strength in comparison to painting and drawings; the clarity of the photographic image can be as good as retinal attributes, art can range from a photographic like detail or creative interpretations. Subsequently the word photography originates from the Greek word, photo (light) and graphein (writing).
Would we be able to clearly be able to recall the events in our life successfully without a camera? Probably not, the brain remembers only what we deemed to be the information so the colour of the villa door in Spain 10 years ago? Or our old houses as an infant child these bit of memory decay. But the camera has the ability piece up the memory providing us with an indisputable trace “writing with light” meant we were only a click away from recording our own piece of embalmed time that we can keep giving more evidential value to our lives
Photographs are ultimately is something we gain pleasure or information from, whether its admiring pictures of our loved one...
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...photography’s association to the real continues to clout how digital and analog images are received. In this regard, digital photography is both distinctive from and rooted in the history of photography. But the development of digital technology should enable us to rethink prior disputes or assumptions about what the camera function really is it is essential in modern culture its what we use to record our lives its what we see on the cover of magazines and illustrating the news online.
Our reality is inconsistent and unpredictable, space and time is fluid, not static photographic techniques will develop over time, something that plays such an complex role in our lives has to keep up with us, maybe we should append suggestions about whether photography is dying or is not truthful enough analogue and digital doesn’t need to always be representative of the real.
Photography allows us to maintain memories and relish them whenever we desire. Although some advocates might argue that people are no longer enjoying experiences instead taking more pictures, in the essay, “Why We Take Pictures”, by Susan Sontag, she conflates that photography can be used as a defense against anxiety and a tool of empowerment. I agree with Sontag on the significance of photographs and how it allows us to store a part of our extended relatives so we are able to hold on the memories of family. Therefore, we must appreciate how photography allows us to manage anxiety, express feelings and remember our loved ones.
A picture is more than just a piece of time captured within a light-sensitive emulsion, it is an experience one has whose story is told through an enchanting image. I photograph the world in the ways I see it. Every curious angle, vibrant color, and abnormal subject makes me think, and want to spark someone else’s thought process. The photographs in this work were not chosen by me, but by the reactions each image received when looked at. If a photo was merely glanced at or given a casual compliment, then I didn’t feel it was strong enough a work, but if one was to stop somebody, and be studied in curiosity, or question, then the picture was right to be chosen.
Sontag, Susan. "Essay | Photography Enhances Our Understanding of the World." BookRags. BookRags. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
Anyone today would agree that as far as photography is concerned, we have most certainly advanced far beyond what many of photography’s pioneers could have possibly imagined. The ease in which we are so readily able to document our lives through photos, along with the quality of those photos, is simply amazing. However, there is a certain authenticity that is found in the antiquated processes of photography that modern pictures simply can’t deliver.
Susan Sontag’s essay on how photography has limited people’s understanding of the world contains many interesting points that can be agreeable while at the same time having few that I tend to disagree with. Photography can be good and bad; it can open our minds up to new cultures and experiences through its imagery. However, at the same time it can limit our understanding of the world around us and of the world around the image it is portraying.
Cameras were invented in the early 1800’s and have evolved throughout the years. Photography is a word derived from the Greek words photos ("light") and graphein ("to draw") The word was first used by the scientist Sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839. The first camera was invented by Alhazen Ibn Al-Haytham who lived around 1000 AD. He invented the pinhole camera which is also called the Camera Obscura. The images from this camera were upside down. In 1827, Joseph Nicephore Niepce made the first photographic image with the Camera Obscura. Before this, people simply used cameras for viewing or drawing purposes. Niepce’s sun prints or heliographs set the stage for modern photography as they let light draw the picture for the image. He did this by placing an engraving onto a metal plate coated in bitumen and them exposed it to light. The whiter areas of the engraving allowed light t...
Despite this, Sontag emphasizes that we tend to believe there is more truth in a photograph than in the world surrounding us and goes on to say that “photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are” . With that being said, how might the supposedly sheer spontaneity and effortlessness of this image be more celebrated or ac...
Photography is a form of art, the ability to capture moments that we share and experience throughout our life. Moments that we can share and show others, moments that can show the expression, emotion, and history. Photography has literally shaped how we see the world and the people in it. It has given us the opportunity to keep records of historical moments that will forever remember and it has given us the chance to show other how life varied for everyone in this world. That is what photographer Jamie Johnson shows us through her work such as Vices and Irish Travelers.
The book “On Photography” by Susan Sontag, she expresses several views and ideas about photography to educate us further about her views. In Sontag’s view, “To collect photographs is to collect the world” (Sontag 3). In other words, Sontag believes that the photograph that is taken will always be a photograph within society in his/her own world. I interpret the quote this way because if our life is captured in photographs, that’s our whole world. Even though we are capturing it through the lenses, we are still experiencing it some how, some way.
As seen in paintings of battle scenes and portraits of wealthy Renaissance aristocracy, people have always strived to preserve and document their existence. The creation of photography was merely the logical continuum of human nature’s innate desire to preserve the past, as well as a necessary reaction to a world in a stage of dramatic and irreversible change. It is not a coincidence that photography arose in major industrial cities towards the end of the nineteenth century.
When going for a walk, a person takes in the beauty around them. On this particular day, the refulgent sun is extra bright, making the sky a perfect blue. White, puffy clouds fill the sky, slowing moving at their own pace. The wind is peacefully calm, making the trees stand tall and proud. There is no humidity in the air. As this person walks down the road, they see a deer with her two fawns. The moment is absolutely beautiful. Moments like this happen only once in a great while, making us wanting to stay in the particular moment forever. Unfortunately, time moves on, but only if there were some way to capture the day’s magnificence. Thanks to Joseph Niépce, we can now capture these moments and others that take our breath away. The invention of the camera and its many makeovers has changed the art of photography.
Photojournalism plays a critical role in the way we capture and understand the reality of a particular moment in time. As a way of documenting history, the ability to create meaning through images contributes to a transparent media through exacting the truth of a moment. By capturing the surreal world and presenting it in a narrative that is relatable to its audience, allows the image to create a fair and accurate representation of reality.
Photography is a word derived from the Greek words “photos” meaning light and “graphein” meaning draw. The word was first used by John F.W Herschel in 1839. It is a method of recording images by the action of light, or related radiation, on a sensitive material (Bellis, N.D).
The question of how society will function when all checks that a few thousand years of civilization have imposed have disappeared has yet to be answered. Society has been trained to view photographs as representations of Reality, but digital imaging has quickly tossed that mindset aside. The underlying Problem results in questioning of everyday events such as, the ability to look at a Photo and trust that the images we see are truly representative of the situation.
In this essay I will investigate the idea that photography has become a part of one’s everyday life, when we are taking a photograph we are actual taking a memory and making it ‘Immortal’. Freezing a portion of one’s life also becomes a social activity and the reason that one would pick up a camera and snap that ‘important’ event, would seem to be a very ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ part of one’s life, we also seem to think that it gives one an opportunity to be ‘accepted’ into today’s society, social networking sites have become the hart of the social climax of our forever snapping community. It was estimated there is over 16 billion photos on instergram [__]. We also seem to be documenting one’s life and using that frozen moment to express are feelings, such as joy, excitement, anger, proud(?) or even love. We also use photography in are society as a why to pass information, its become a massive part of are social network. To do this I will be looking at how humanity throughout history have photographed parts of their lives to create a memory, a ‘immortal’ memory.