Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The Ontology of the Photographic Image
Okay. So that was incredibly confusing and I'm not sure why. It was very far from Walter Benjamin's Essay in his choice of words. But then again I take that back. Maybe it's just me, but i felt like Andre Bazin couldn't make his mind up about photography. I did not buy what he was saying. First he semi-critiques painting: "How vain a thing is painting". It was a way to preserve oneself alongside sculptures/mummies. It is seen as an illusion and almost devirginized by the touch of man's hand..."cast a shadow of doubt over the image". On the other side, there is this holy amazing thing that man plays no part. That which is the camera. Now I don't know why but I felt like he wasn't fully believing what he was saying either. Maybe it is because of his choice of words, by making it seem over the top, but he never puts in enough evidence. I think photography does have man's hands all over it. Man's hand's created the camera after all! Bazin seems to agree with this in saying that the photographer's personality is part of the picture in what he chooses to photograph and what the purpose of the photo is. But I think the photographer plays a larger role than that. I mean why else isn't everyone a well renowned photographer?? Clearly there is something that others have that we don't. Just as painting, there is the talent of painting a beautiful picture. THey pick what they want to paint and what the painting is for? How does it make it any different other than you have to be able to paint? Well to take a picture, you have to understand lighting and focus and all that, which makes it of equal difficulty and importance. I think it is a pretty cheesy piece honestly, and as I said earlier, I'm not buying it. I'm kind of annoyed by how glorious he makes photography seem; "the power of photography" and "(nature) imitates the artist". I especially enjoyed the last line where he throws in "On the other hand, of coursee, cinema is also a language". All those little details just made it seem sarcastic and not nearly as powerful as Benjamins piece.
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The Ontology of the Photographic Image-Ellie Monobe
I found this writing somewhat interesting in the beginning; I thought that the mention of Eygiptian processes of preserving the body was an interesting lead into photography. It was interesting to read about Bazin making the connection between how humans like to keep images of people who have past and the preservation of people through mummification.
One quote that really caught my eye during this reading was that “perspective was the original sin of Western painting”. This quote makes the “perspective” that was found in western painting as some holy gift that was born. Later on in the passage it then recognizes photography as freeing the plastic arts from likeliness and it was Niepce and Lumiere that unleashed perspective from sin and applied it to photography. Unlike painting, photography satisfied the realist ideas and showed us reality and life experiences. Painting, in this text, was viewed as something far more superior but yet too much like all the other art forms in the world. I got the feeling that to some people who appreciated changed enjoyed photography and saw it as some kind of release. He made it seem that it was impossible to ever create an image without the interference o f humans until photography was discovered and then there was no use for man besides hitting the button and developing the picture.
Lastly, another quote that I really felt like I grasped the concept of the superiority photography developed over painting was that “for photography does not create eternity, as art does, it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption”. The plastic arts can create this aura that can pull you and can make you ponder about the era and generation it was created in. No one can look at a paingint for only a second and know exactly what place, time and what events were occurring at the moment the art was being formed because it takes a lot longer to produce than just a snapshot. Photography can capture a moment in time and have it there in your hands to view forever, when before if the picture wasn’t taken it could’ve been gone in an instant, or corrupted as Bazin would say.
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