Marvin Heiferman discusses the evolution of photography and sheds light on the various avenues it is utilized in our lives. Photography is, indeed, an art medium but it is also a tool used in a broad variety of instances. With advances in technology, means of photographing and photographs/images have become very accessible. Taking photographs and sharing images have become an integral part of the human experience. Taking photos is a manner of documenting our experience, a personal memory, and also communicating those experiences, or moments, visually. The development of the digital camera, personal computer, and internet has greatly affected this practice. Nowadays, people have a camera in their phone, which is essentially on their person always. The cell or smartphone has radically altered the manner in which we take, alter, and transmit images. Heiferman states,"photographs are being made in record numbers; an estimated 1.3 billion new photographic images are made daily- close to half a trillion every year- and they can span the world in seconds." Additionally, "As photography is being transformed, so too is the implicit (but often unexamined) contract between images, reality, and it's viewers."
Photography, though it captures time, freezes a single moment/slows time to a stand still, it is also active. Photographs not only show us but they engage us- inform, evoke emotion, and stimulate us intellectually. Heiferman discusses a proposed project to advocate for a more accurate assessment of photography's utility and power. In this project, participants from various and different backgrounds were surveyed and asked how photography has transformed their personal life or field of professional interest. As they received stories or testimonies, a workable organizational structure came to be. Six categories emerged:
Photography Changes What We Want: Images confirm what we have attained and set up goal posts for what we hope to achieve
Photography Changes What We See: Photography shows us what the human eye cannot see- distance, phenomena, events that lie beyond our sight, change that is too fast or slow.
Photography Changes Who We Are: How we present ourselves, how others perceive us, how we are depicted in our own photographs or others' shapes our self-image and stereotypes.
Photography Changes What We Do: Photography does more than document what we have already done; it influences much of what we decide to do. Photo images shape how we communicate, learn, and interact.
Photography Changes Where We Go: Photographs show us worlds beyond our immediate environment. We can see places that are physically out of geographical or historical bounds.
Photography Changes What We Remember: Photography is a medium to keep track of what has happened to us. Photographs are not simply vessels of memory but have the capacity to create, interfere with, and trouble the memories we hold as individuals and as a culture.
Photography is an ever changing medium as technology advances. Photography's meaning and significance will continually change; evolving as we change because of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment