Butler And Azoulay Photography Essay

Winogrand took photos of everything he saw; he always carried a camera or two, loaded and prepared to go. He sought after to make his photographs more interesting than no matter what he photographed. Contrasting many well-known photographers, he never knew what his photographs would be like he photographed in order to see what the things that interested him looked like as photographs. His photographs resemble snapshots; street scenes, parties, the zoo. A critical artistic difference between Winogrand's work and snapshots has been described this way, the snapshooter thought he knew what the subject was in advance, and for Winogrand, photography was the process of discovering it. If we recall tourist photographic practice, the difference becomes clear: tourists know in advance what photographs of the Kodak Hula Show will look like. In comparison, Winogrand fashioned photographs of subjects that no one had thought of photographing. Again and again his subjects were unconscious of his camera or indifferent to it. Winogrand was a foremost figure in post-war photography, yet his pictures often appear as if they are captured by chance. To him and other photographers in the 1950s, the previous pictures seemed planned, designed, visualized, understood in advance; they were little more than pictures, in actual fact less, because they claimed to be somewhat else the examination of real life. In this sense, the work of Garry Winogrand makes a motivating comparison to Ziller's

For this essay the works of Robert Draper, author of “Why Photos Matter,” and Fred Ritchen, author of “Photography Changes the Way News is Reported,” will be analyzed. Though both deal with the topic of photography, their take on the matter is very different. While Ritchen is a photographer who writes on “what professional photographers will be doing in the future,” Draper is a writer for the National Geographic writing on how the photographers of the magazine share “a hunger for the unknown.” Both writers, however, write on the topic of photographers having a deeper understanding of their subjects, Ritchen due to research and practice, and Draper because the photographers “sit [with] their subjects, just listening to them.” In both essays the need for a deeper understanding of the

While Postman points out the literal meaning of photography is “writing with light”; the two are from completely different universes when it comes to public discourse (p. 71). Unlike typography, photography cannot offer assertions, make propositions and offers no commentary. As long as it is not an altered photograph, it has no choice but to be true (p. 73). Thus, the photograph is only able to capture a moment in time and does not have the ability to comment on that moment. Our author contends, where language presents the world as an idea, the photographs only option is to show the world as an object (p. 72). Whereas in language, the correct context requires consideration of what is said before and after, in photography there is no before and after, only the snapshot of time. Therefore, by its very nature photography is context-free (p. 73). As photography immersed itself in the American culture author, Daniel Boorstin called this “the graphic revolution.” Postman is unequivocal on the point that the traditional forms of information, news, and even reality itself received an impairment by this new focus on images. For examples, he cites billboards, posters and advertisements. He points to magazines Life, Look and several newspapers. The picture was the focal point, and the writing was forced to take a less dominate roll and sometimes done away with altogether (p.

As New York photographer James Maher quoted from A World History of Photography, “photographs used in campaigns for social reform not only provided truthful evidence but embodied a commitment to humanistic ideals” (361). Moreover, as shown in the article Documenting the Social Scene, the powerful photography that Hine and Riis have captured of immigrants encapsulate the need for change; furthering the separation of their photojournalism from illustrative and recreational art. From Hine documenting much of the practices of child labor, to Riis exposing the harsh living conditions of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, (Maher) both photographers comply to a code of ethics and sense of journalistic integrity— Riis and Hine showcase the truth behind the photos in a way that attempts to humanize the subjects on film as much as it attempts to engage a moral debate of the situations at hand. In addition, to exemplify the impact of photojournalism, we must consider the perspective of the Gilded Age

Teju Cole, in his essay “Against Neutrality,” dissected the tones behind photography- which he believes are thought of as unbiased towards the subject. The power of words and of photos is crucial to Cole’s essay. He states that images can “make a grim situation palatable” because of the photographer’s craftiness in selection (Cole 1). To anyone who isn’t an experienced photographer these tricks can be hard to see but Cole provides further insight from the historian, John Edwin Mason. Expectantly, Mason sheds light behind the misconception on photography, how the “manipulation in photography isn’t really about Photoshop or darkroom tricks”, but the style, angle and other aspects of taking photos (Cole 1).

Photographers have the ability to capture a certain moment in their lifetime. Some of them take advantage of the image in front of them and some do not fully understand the purpose of the moment. Is it worth recording the moment? Everyday people take images on their cell phones because they want to share them with friends and family. In 1993, Kevin Carter went on a trip to Sudan and took a picture of a starving Sudanese girl being stalked by a vulture. However, what photographers, like Kevin Carter, fail to realize is that every time a picture is taken, a part of the individual photographed is taken away. Kevin Carter’s presentation of the starving child serves not only as a claim of the ignorance of American people, but also as the measures

Meanwhile, photography as a commodity in the industrial world at that time, its status in galleries and museums is determined by the price it sells, which means the higher the price is, the higher position it stands. This situation increases the gap between this photography and another type of photography, which works simply for exposing abuses caused by jobs, races, sex, social classes and etc. that people are unfamiliar to accept and consume.

Photographs are re-collections of the past. This essay is about photography, memory, and history and addresses the relationship between photographic images and the need to remember; it is based on the notion that seeing is a prelude to historical knowledge and that understanding the past relies on the ability to imagine. At the same time, the role of thought and imagination in the production of society--as reflected in the earlier work of Louis Althusser (1970), Maurice Godelier (1984) and perhaps more significantly, Cornelis Castoriadis (1975), suggests yet another role for photography in the construction of a social and cultural reality. Photographs in capitalist societies contribute to the production of information and participate in the surveillance of the environment where their subjective and objective qualities are applied to the private uses of photographic images in the perpetuation of memory.

The set of archive images that constitute Sultan and Mandel’s Evidence, were the culmination of two years research within an array of government agencies, educational institutions and corporations: from the Aeronutronic Ford Corporation, Newport Beach to the Veterans Administration Hospital, Palo Alto. The artists were granted access to millions of photographs within these spaces and therein embarked on a critical process of appropriation. As Sultan states, “Mike and I, through the act of selection, became authors”(BAMPFA, 2012). Throughout the work we are focused on the notion of the photograph as index: the trace of a footprint on wet paving slabs, a passport photo next to a hand print in sand. Despite this very specific reference the status of the photograph, as an empiric document, is continually questioned, not least in the title of the work. The concept of

Ara Guler, the famed photojournalist who was donned with the nickname “the Eye of Istanbul ” did not consider himself an artist. “[With] photography being a visual medium,” Guler says, “we press photographers record the visual history of our time. I find that more crucial than creating art. ” Statements such as this raise a great number of questions, and cause for the consideration of the definition of art, the definition of photojournalism, and how photojournalism relates to art.

In his succinct argument, Raoul discusses the potential longevity of photomontage as an important medium for not only its initial political and propagandistic purposes but also as having future use case in psychology, sociology, and even optics. Not only is this argument sparked by the opinion, (although these opinionated critics are never directly named), that photomontage did not have future potential but, importantly, that it had also become too commercial for the avant-garde. Photomontage had begun to gain primary popularity in advertising, used for popular film and even fashion. This widespread use in advertising simplified the respected method and initial motivations for the medium, supposedly diluting critical high art appreciation. Hausmann also touches upon the new critical obsession with the New Objectivity movement in Germany. Is there room for new movements to exist parallel to former expressions, allowing them to both advance or is the latter doomed to only exist as an illustration of a particular historical lens?

Set against the backdrop of World War II and its aftermath, the episode examines how photographers dealt with dramatic and tragic events like D-Day, the Holocaust and Hiroshima, and the questions their often extraordinary pictures raise about history as seen

What is a photograph? The simplicity of taking a photograph leads many to ponder its artistic value. Yet, it is undeniable that there are some photos that cause an emotional reaction deeper than simply observing a recorded point in time. Surely, there are photographs that cause more reaction than some modern art pieces. There seems to be two types of photographs. The first classification is the ‘time capture’ photo – an image with the sole purpose of recording a particular event or point in time. The second nature of a photo carries a ‘deeper meaning,’ which has the ability to change the observer’s mood and cause a reaction. But what distinguishes these two varieties? There are a

Have you ever taken a picture or been looking through a photo album and felt a sudden rush of emotion? Do you wonder what caused that emotion? Many find themselves captivated by a photograph and overwhelmed by the emotions that the photograph arouses. Believe it or not the arousal of emotion from those photographs was not caused by the content of the picture but by certain elements within the photograph. When a photograph is viewed it is not only the subject that triggers the overwhelming emotional response, it is the length of time that the film was exposed to sunlight, the way lighting is used and played with, and the strong detail of colors or lack thereof. While many believe that the subject acts as the primary stimuli to emotions, the

Susan Sontag said photographs sends across the harmlessness and helplessness of the human life steering into their own ruin. Furthermore the bond connecting photography with departure from life tortures the human race. (Sontag 1977:64)