Synthesis Essay: The Role Of Truth In Photography

Photography, meaning “drawing with lights” in Greek, is an art as well as a science of capturing light and storing it on a medium with unprecedented accuracy. Yet, up until the late 18th century, history was mainly recorded through the techniques of painting and the press. These mediums unarguably contained a certain degree of a truth, though, it was not uncommon for events, such as war to be composed with glorified details, or an unfavorable bias from the artist at hand. Beginning in the 1830’s, cameras provided a revolutionary solution by combining the advancements in optics and chemistry. Consequently, the new medium of photography was established and forever changed how history would be visually captured. Unlike other methods, photography

A man may recognize himself in his father, grandfather, great grandfather and uncles faces, men who no longer exist. Photographs provide evidence of their lives, and the changes through time. As someone who enjoys studying people, and culture, the art of Photography has capture moments of absolute joy, the birth of a child, marriage, birthday celebrations. It can be evidence of war crimes, and genocide, destruction and

Photography gives you a small sample of reality, but these realities have been changed to what the photographer wants to present. However as Sontag stated, “Of course, photographs fill in the blanks in our mental pictures of the present and the past.” Pictures show proof that all of the history that we learn is true, but although it confirms that, pictures does not show us the entire picture of how people felt about the situation. For example, one might have a picture from WWII and show us the setting, but does that picture really show the feeling of the people? That is why we say that photography only goes as far as to how the photographer wants to show the

For many years photojournalism has been considered a transformative form of media, meaning that through the use of photographs photojournalism has the ability to transform our way of thinking by reconstructing the conscious of our society. Photojournalism achieves this effect by forcing society to reconsider its actions as it relates to humanity by using photographs to both illicit emotions and cause reactions that, if done properly can result in social change. Photojournalism is an important branch of visual media when

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

For the past century, the use of photography has provided us with a plethora of images documenting history and cementing memories. It became a medium through which to provide news, sum up all of the words within an article into a single image and further evoke the reader’s emotions through visual stimuli. Although the first known photograph taken for journalism was to capture the events of the Crimean War during 1855, perhaps the most impressive utilization of the camera for news was during WW2 (Struet, Thomas). Never before had photos exposed such catastrophic and inhumane conditions imposed onto a massive group of people. The use of photography during WW2 to illustrate the horrific events taken place in Europe brought on such compassion through the masses; essentially making photojournalism a critical practice through which to provide information.

Sontag claims that “photography is, a social rite, but it can also be a defense against anxiety and a tool of power (page 130).” She backs her claim by stating “photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possessions of space in which they are insecure.” (Sontag page 131). In other words, having pictures allows people to tell stories that may not be exactly true. I agree with Sontag because I have witnessed and experienced how pictures can hurt someone emotionally while empowering others.

Art is such an eternal concept and part of our lives. It lives on through generations, transcending many periods, and can speak through many mediums. Art is a way of expression, when nothing else can capture, but is something that can be interpreted in many ways. I chose photography—that which best portrays mankind, in that it hides nothing and only shows what is there to begin with. “It is the language most readily understandable to all and our most important form of communication among nations and cultures.”(Schuneman; Koner 59-60) Two excellent representations of this is a street

Art is a way that humans use to express their creative, skill, and imagination. For most artists using the world and all other unimaginable things are how they come up with their own work. One example, is Daryl Thetford, who is an amazing artist that makes art out of all kinds of photographs. One photograph is the search for realty, which is of a man sanding on a clock while holding a remote control pointed on a bulletin board full all kinds of photographs. The photograph colors are all light colors, many shapes, and many lines are used in the photograph. The search for realty is a vertical panting that expresses Thetford overview of the world, and how in many things in hid panting we see many evidence of his world view. The way Thetford views

Chaos, a state of utter confusion or disorder. Chaos, a word often used to describe the scene of a tragic event such as a natural disaster or an act of terrorism. Whether in movies or in real life we have all seen chaos at work. Smoke and screams fill the air. Law enforcement franticly runs about trying to help in any way possible. Reporters and photographers arrive in swarms to get the inside scoop on the next ground breaking tragedy. When the Boston bombing happened on April 15, 2013 there was no exception to this pattern of events. Many photographs were taken of the aftermath, but one photo in particular seems to have captured the frantic atmosphere of the moment. It depicts an older man who, mid run, had been knocked

The rise of photography began in the early 1830’s in France, and wasn’t very popular as most artists preferred a paintbrush and canvas to a new contraption that wasn’t popular and wasn’t manufactured locally or globally yet and that was fairly expensive to try to produce, and since this time it has been debated if photography deserves its place in the art world. Through the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s it grew in popularity and throughout time photography went from being badly received to a new form of art though people around the world still debate if it is indeed “art”. Photography has a long history from the first camera obscura in the 18th century to the latest Nikon or Canon camera in the 21st century.

In 1979 Stephen Shore, "Merced River, Yosemite National Park,” 1930 Walker Evans, "Factory street in Amsterdam, New York,” and in 1941 Dorothea Lange, "Road on the Great White Plains,” these three photographers transformed their landscape photographs into their own distinctive significance through the expression of realism, a movement in modern photography. Shore transforms a common place to an escape, Evans documents the effects of one of the most important historical periods in American social history and Lange uses her photography as a tool for political change. Although they all embodied their photograph with their own significance, they don't share the same motives.

This paper will help give insights to those that don’t know photography so they can hear from an artist perspective about the most significant aspect of photography which is documentary photography. When you think about photography, most think of landscape, commercial, and fine arts photography. But they fail to know that with photography it takes documenting the things captured for those other particular aspects of photography. In addition, photography, consisting of creativity, composition, and technical competency is an art that allow individuals to capture moments that are not visible to those who lack a sense of photographic perspective but this mostly is towards

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

The aim of the pictures is to have low contrast to smooth the skins of the people in the pictures out. We eventually decided to use the spots and individually light each artwork. The rest of the room will be darkened to enable the eye to perceive some forms that are hidden in the background as we can see with the woman sitting in the back of Figure 2. We would hang the photographs simply on the wall like a painting and the disposition of the pictures will help the dialogue between the pieces. Since the room is vaulted, it makes a perfect transition between one photo to the other if the viewer follows the pattern indicated above. Each picture would be framed with a white frame to emphasize the contrast between the black and white picture, but also the contrast with the wall so it can get more attention and focus. In terms of labels, the exhibition team decided to provide captions that might be controversial, while being true to the reality of who took these pictures. We decided not to use the usual captions found in textbooks and exhibitions up to this day since we considered the issue of authorship in Mali during this period. According to Candace Keller, who is an African art historian, Malick Sidibé didn’t take any pictures after his marriage in 1961 and his work should be credited to his apprentices Sidiki Sidibé and Amadou Fané (Keller 39). As a group, we thought that the best solution would be to replace the name of Malick Sidibé completely, but this action would bring