Description Of A Photo Is Itinerant

It is said that “The true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives from a play not with form but with time”. This makes me think that the real content of a picture, which is what the photographer tried to express, is not evident to perceive unless an explanatory text is provided. In fact, I believe that our perceptions of pictures changes over time as the historical context do. In addition, our opinions are never fixed as they are influenced by our environment. Therefore, when looking at a particular picture at a given time, it is certain that our perception of it will be different in the future based on what happen between the first time and second time we saw it.

Critically reflect on the positives and/or negatives of ethnic residential concentration as perceptible within specific landscapes in Sydney.

In “Ways of Seeing”, John Berger, an English art critic, argues that images are important for the present-day by saying, “No other kind of relic or text from the past can offer such direct testimony about the world which surrounded other people at other times. In this respect images are more precise and richer literature” (10). John Berger allowed others to see the true meaning behind certain art pieces in “Ways of Seeing”. Images and art show what people experienced in the past allowing others to see for themselves rather than be told how an event occurred. There are two images that represent the above claim, Arnold Eagle and David Robbins’ photo of a little boy in New York City, and Dorothea Lange’s image of a migratory family from Texas; both were taken during the Great Depression.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but maybe they are worth far more than that. Pictures, although seemingly simple in nature, are extremely complex. Far too often, people overlook what a picture truly is. When a person looks at an image, they most likely see only the image, nothing else. Many people do not look deep enough into an image to fully comprehend the true meaning of it. However, when an individual begins to truly study an image in an attempt to understand the true complexity of it, they will be surprised at what they overlooked before. As stated by French Realist Painter, Gustave Courbet, “Fine art is knowledge made visible.”

Over the past few decades, enhancements in the visual fields have greatly improved, giving weight on the importance of visual material in text. Something that is more visually stimulating can usually make a text more convincing or credible. The term “seeing is believing” proves this fact. As humans, we tend to believe something if we can actually see it, which is why Jay David Bolter has referred to this phenomenon of the changed role of text and graphics as the “visual culture” in his book Writing Space. “Mere words no longer seemed adequate; they had to share their space with images.” (Bolter, 69).

The authors tell the reader that a picture must be interpreted like an essay or piece of writing. The motive and goal of the author or photographer must be figured out.

As we know, the result of “Art is” is “Art is” which returned in an ephemeral form at the Studio Museum. All forty photographs are on display on the basement level of the galleries, which are supposedly reserved for pieces in their permanent collection. The room just outside, whether coincidentally or not, is filled with photos of students - reflecting personal memories. How the museum decides to play with this, is by missing them with old-timer photos of Harlem from the

Arts sole purpose is to evoke an emotion out of its audience and influence them as well. Whether art makes you feel euphoric or sad, it resonates within every individual differently. In this day in age, artists utilize the internet as a method of sharing their work freely with others. According to Lethem, “The American commons include tangible assets such as public for public assets such as public forests and minerals, intangible wealth such as copyrights and patents, critical infrastructures such as the Internet and government research , and cultural resources such as the broadcast airwaves and public spaces. They include resources we’ve paid for as taxpayers and inherited from previous generations” (222). This suggests the Internet is a creative resource that is invaluable to the art community; however, it should be used with caution. The internet is not a resource that can be owned or privatized, which is why individuals can be exposed to anything at any time. On the internet, many images pop up quite frequently and they evoke little to no emotion from those who see it, because they have seen it a numerous amount of times. This is unfortunate, because the quality of one’s work is being diminished if people have become indifferent towards it. Nelson argues that, “But there are also perils. And one is that in cultural moment defined (by some, for some) by image flow, the question of what one should look at, along with attendant inquiries into nature and effect of images blowing by, has creepy way of overtaking almost all other questions” (304). This infers that image flow is something that alters how individuals are affected by art and the feelings one should have toward it. Although technology has been beneficial to the art community, image flow continues to damage the effect that art is intended to have. Seeing

Before starting this project, I knew very little about photography, photographers, or exactly how much impact photographical images have had on our society. I have never taken a photography class, or researched too in depth about specific pictures or photographers. This project has allowed me to delve deeper into the world of photography in order to understand just how much influence pictures can have over society’s beliefs, emotions, and understandings’. I have have chosen two highly influential photographers, Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange, who I have found to both resonate with me and perfectly capture human emotions in way that moves others.

The violent markings of the photo album and its images, however, produce an equally powerful message that jars the memory as it disrupts and distorts the photographic chronicle of her life and that of her family and friends. The result is a complex visual experience that addresses the use of images in producing knowledge and making history.

Art critic Robert Hughes once said, “People inscribe their histories, beliefs, attitudes, desires and dreams in the images they make.” When discussing the mediums of photography and cinema, this belief of Hughes is not very hard to process and understand. Images, whether they be still or moving, can transform their audiences to places they have either never been before or which they long to return to. Images have been transporting audiences for centuries thanks to both the mediums of photography and cinema and together they gone through many changes and developments. When careful consideration is given to these two mediums, it is acceptable to say that they will forever be intertwined, and that they have been interrelated forms of

The processes of looking closely and thinking critically about visual texts are important to art and design practices because they allow us to develop our own ideas about a visual text. Often artists leave their work open to interpretation, with only a vague title to supply context. Thinking critically enables the audience to come up with their own theories about an

It creates an illogical connection between ‘here-now’ and the ‘there-then’. As the photograph is a means of recording a moment, it always contains ‘stupefying evidence of this is how it was’. In this way, the denoted image can naturalise the connoted image as photographs retain a ‘kind of natural being there of objects’; that is, the quality of having recorded a moment in time. Barthes stresses that as technology continues to “develop the diffusion of information (and notably of images), the more it provides the means of masking the constructed meaning under the appearance of the given meaning’ (P159-60).

W.J.T. Mitchell’s status as a critic in the art world is impressive, and his writings about art are globally influential. His essay “Word and Image” is part of a definitive collection of essays, most of which define critical art terms. The critical art term that Mitchell defines here is “word and image.” The first few paragraphs seem straightforward enough, and at first the essay seems to limit its scope to the challenges limitations inherent in the task of describing images with words. However, Mitchell’s prose soon becomes more and more complex as he deftly explains the illusory nature of defining such an intricate concept.

The world as a gallery or images and ideas. This statement itself immediately opens my mind and it feels like I can finally see the world clearly. It’s so easy to walk through life and see the lights pass by, blinding us to our surroundings. But, the sooner we hit the pause button, the faster we realize all the wonders we have been missing. The world itself holds many surprises, not necessarily found only in galleries or museums. The greatest thing that I have learned is that anything can be art or a form of art. Photographs, movies, graphics, pieces of scraps, and even buildings. Our surroundings can just as well be our gallery if we let it.