I've had to cultivate a detachment from photos and other "things" in general to stop me from going crazy.
Only reality is worth investing emotion into.
"Never let anything 'artistic' stand in your way" has sort of become a motto for me, stolen from Bruce Chatwin (who got it from Noel Coward).
Only reality is worth investing emotion into.
"Never let anything 'artistic' stand in your way" has sort of become a motto for me, stolen from Bruce Chatwin (who got it from Noel Coward).
Some photos are far more engaging than others, but in the end each seems to offer just a quick emotional hit that rapidly fades.
Meanwhile, irrespective of its aritstic qualities, each one is asking for far more trust than it should be getting.
What bothers me is photography's uneasy, unsettled relationship with reality, how photographers often pose as witnesses when they're really manipulators - both on the field and in how they present things afterwards.
There would be a much more guarded response to images were this element of manipulation not all too easily ignored, because it interferes with the enjoyment of an image.
Meanwhile, irrespective of its aritstic qualities, each one is asking for far more trust than it should be getting.
What bothers me is photography's uneasy, unsettled relationship with reality, how photographers often pose as witnesses when they're really manipulators - both on the field and in how they present things afterwards.
There would be a much more guarded response to images were this element of manipulation not all too easily ignored, because it interferes with the enjoyment of an image.
Meanwhile a photo still carries a segment (or burden) of objective truth that is unnerving and makes photography unlike any other art.
The photo's silence, moreover, gives the image a deceptively stern, grave quality, as if it offered a clear view "beyond the noise".
The photo's silence, moreover, gives the image a deceptively stern, grave quality, as if it offered a clear view "beyond the noise".
Each picture sucks you in, makes demands on your emotions. A little vacuum that can leave you drained if you're not careful.
Published pictures have so much authority that they seem to have the final word on the way something should be viewed.. (I think that's what many photographers secretly love about photographs - the authority of the published image.)
Once published, images can seem like the assertion of an unassailable objective wholeness.
Published pictures have so much authority that they seem to have the final word on the way something should be viewed.. (I think that's what many photographers secretly love about photographs - the authority of the published image.)
Once published, images can seem like the assertion of an unassailable objective wholeness.
Writing is made of components, words, and can be broken down or rewired. Pictures, meanwhile, cannot be - they supposedly just convey the captive instant. "Don't shoot the messenger!" each one squeaks when confronted.
.
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If Sharia law were imposed tomorrow and all images were banned, would a wonderful freedom from a degrading tyranny of archetypes and stereotypes not emerge?
To my mind anything of any importance that exists is outside the realms of the visible. The visible is only (and not always to the same degree) a manifestation or effect of what is important and invisible.
Photography helps place far too much emphasis on the visible symptoms, as if they functioned in lockstep with the invisible causes, which is rarely the case.
When, as a culture, photography makes us become fixated with the symptoms as if they were an accurate evocation of the causes and we start to think that what has no visible symptom has less importance than what does, we reach a point where we no longer understand the world so well.
Photography helps place far too much emphasis on the visible symptoms, as if they functioned in lockstep with the invisible causes, which is rarely the case.
When, as a culture, photography makes us become fixated with the symptoms as if they were an accurate evocation of the causes and we start to think that what has no visible symptom has less importance than what does, we reach a point where we no longer understand the world so well.
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