"The Anti-Photographers" - Sierra Flynn

At the beginning of her essay, Nancy Foote addresses the presence of the everlasting debate about photography as art and states, “it continues to bug us” (57). I thought this was a perfect beginning, for it basically outlines our main topic of discussion thus far into the semester. Foote briefly mentions that the importance placed on an image of the surrounding in which one exhibits has much to do with how the photograph is perceived and viewed by the public. I never realized the context in which the image is viewed could affect the observer so greatly. Seeing a photograph in a museum or art exhibit almost forces the viewer to accept it as art, whereas seeing a picture in a newspaper or album does not.
Foote also states, “once the act [of photography] is over, they acquire eyewitness status, becoming…the art itself” (59). This quote initially made me think of documentary photography. When taking a picture, the photographer is capturing a moment that will never occur again, preserving a once in a lifetime instant. After the moment between the subject and the photographer elapses, the only documentation of that time is the picture, making it, in a sense, the “eyewitness.” Since this moment will never occur again, the picture becomes art rather than the capture of a random time.
Additionally, I really liked Foote’s assertion, “it [photography] can also telescope distance, allowing one to relate isolated situations or events that derive their conceptual strength from juxtaposition and comparison” (60). Although Foote is mostly talking about conceptual photography when she makes this claim, my mind again returned to documentary photography. Images, like ones by Evans or Lange, allow the viewer to experience and be aware of a situation very far from their own (both geographically and economically). For example, I find it fascinating that a city mother may, through a photograph, relate to the destitute pea picker or the tenant farmer’s wife. Photographs can help establish a relationship between two strangers who, without pictures, would not know of each other’s existence.