Reading Ch. 7

If you must know, I truly enjoyed this chapter…maybe as a result of today’s discussion my taste for Ritchin’s ideas has become more to a liking of sorts. I suppose that this chapter gets to a really particle and clear point: photographs can be many things (art, propaganda, information, lies, etc.) but what if we took a medium and utilized it for world betterment?

Now, I am not an idiot it is not as though the idea wasn’t in my mind, but hearing Ritchin talk of the actual changes that have been made for the betterment of the world via photography has taken me out of the “fine art” concept and into a whole new realm of thinking.

I suppose I can understand a little more the frustration with how the medium has been “abused” over the years (or at least misunderstood. It seems photography live in this magical land of the undecided, no one knows what exactly to do with it, how to love or hate it or even quite how to utilize the practice) and I agree using the medium to make societal changes is fantastic, but I am just not so sure when and where “hypertext” is necessary and not intrusive to the author. I actually still really dislike the idea of the hypertext, but do believe finding a way to prove some important images creditable is an important step in the right direction for our future.

Furthermore, it seems fairly evident that images taken from an insider’s point-of-view would be much different than that of a foreigner’s, but that seems to be part of the magnificence of photography for the perspective is half of the image. However, those images may seem of such a bore when in the context of the local papers and magazines themselves, but proves evident that whatever the editor is looking for should be the basis for who s/he chooses the photographer and how they demand that person pursue the story.

Reading Ch. 6

Philosophy is one of my utmost favorite subjects, the intense observation of the unobserved is truly a mind-boggling phenomenon that more often than not leads me to a break down of some sort. With that said, it seems as though this book is Ritchin’s breakdown about the twenty-first century and its’ digital media monsters.

This chapter seems to get right to the core of Ritchin’s main dilemma, which is neither photography nor digital media per-say, it is that the human race is lazy and willing to accept any information with little to no proof of its validity. Ritchin does not necessarily see photography as the problem nor does he hold the mass digital media explosion responsible, he sees the human response and eager acceptance of an easy road to all information as the actual problem. This is most justified through Ritchin’s continual support and advertising for the “hypertext”. Hypertext is a means to make people search and tediously work to find answers to the issues of the world instead of allowing a news station and government to form public opinion.

Though I support his desire to promote a more aware public/society, it seems like quite the undertaking to readjust an entire way of thinking via more work for the individual. He said that one woman spent four hours upon his and Peress’s photo essay navigating to and fro, but who as time for that? Part of the reason things are the way they are with the internet and speed and fast-food is because very few people have time between work, family and maintaining a social life to follow a treasure map to the news, which is probably one main reason very few people read the newspaper, there is always a short-cut that is usually online. I understand wishing people to be more attentive and care about what is true, real and actual but an advanced search seems as equally negative as a quick snap shot of information.

Furthermore, photography by default falls into this category attributing to America’s laziness, but taking away ownership from fine art or even just a photograph seems to have many more downfalls than not. Artists spend vast amount of time thinking and rethinking how to display and exhibit their work, be it in a gallery setting or on a simple poster, but allowing others to readjust the artist’s intentions to fit their liking seems to devalue the art and the artist themselves. The original point of owning or viewing a person’s work is to react with what has been given; if you want to alter artwork make that a piece of work in and of itself, don’t deface and or take ownership of someone else’s intentions.

Reading Ch. 3

Ritchin speaks of travel in the strangest but potentially truest of ways. His idea about people sending images and doing emails is an idea I do not quite relate, but I can say that when I went home to see my family for Christmas I did facebook my life in my free time, which I assume equivocates to emailing the world of my travels. What I find most disturbing of Ritchin’s “suggestions” about how to solve these issues of which he speaks is that there is no real resolve necessary at this moment. However, even more than that I really dislike the idea of have someone basically Photoshop themselves into tourist places as a means to achieve their “I was here photo”. I love the idea of traveling for the sake of travel with no need to “capture” the moment: I traveled to many concerts and different places in Oregon this summer and found it more important to experience the experience than trying to struggle to keep it for visual recall later. In fact the one time I did this was at a Modest Mouse concert with my sister, she was visiting for the summer and it was her very first concert so for her sake I figured I’d bring my fish eye and have some lasting memories…my memories consist of struggling with film while some girl in a dress drunkenly got on and off some man’s shoulders, only to be followed by my backpack getting stolen some days later with all our “memories” in the bag…I don’t try to save the moment much anymore.

Despite the trauma of the entire event I would rather have no image than a standard image that I just place myself in some weird pre-trip travel log. This really speaks to what Barthes refers to in Camera Lucida as the awareness of the “posed” and the “operator”. The event of actually posing for the camera and/or actually looking through some square and pushing a button of any sort is in itself an event. It gives people the opportunity to attempt to portray them in any way they like at that particular moment.

Furthermore, it seems that somewhere along the lines of photographic history observers have been under the impression that photography creates a “real” world, a truth, but that has never been the case as Paul spoke to about the cannons in Fenton’s The Valley of Death, and especially as seen through Jerry Uelsmann’s work. The magic of photography is that it creates a myth, a seemingly real event or visual that lends a comfort that more is possible. It is as though we live in this world that as Ritchin states, we live with “a sense that disbelief is the only antidote to a spiraling chaos that none of us can do anything about.” It is as though we look to the power of photographs to portray something fantastical as some look to a religion and/or a God, something that says we still have something more than what is presented in our reality, and this works to create a “truth” because we assume there at least at some point was the operator to take the basic photo even before it was manipulated so it must always be part truth…