The Role of Photography on Psyche and Behavior

Desire is often limited by preconceptions. The Photography is the Medium of Desire exhibit at the Leslie Lohman Museum unveils the many facets of desire, the photographers’ use of objects, settings, positioning and lighting work to elicit or reveal the scope of desire and desirability and entice the viewer, to explore their own wants and impulses. Throughout the exhibit photographers experiment with images as tools to elicit desires, including, physical, playful, connecting and almost narcissistic desires. Desire is often talked about in terms of sex and sexuality but there are many other types of desires, some are as simple as food and others are more complex such as the personal.

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

Our memories often time embellish the memories we once had of such great people, places, times, and etc. We live these times up to standard that makes us reminisce, hurt, contemplate and so much more. The power of a photograph has been described to have worth a thousand words, metaphorically meaning of course, that what an image can capture in one instance, something that may not ever be captured through words. For too many centuries we have been without, what many of us now take for granted, the photograph. What we capture in a picture, has much more value than we often time see in our commercials, people, places, they tell a story to the ignorant, paint a picture for blind, give the deaf something to listen to, and so much more.

In experiments of scene memory, subjects viewed hundreds of photographs of natural scenes. Afterward, they were asked to identify which photograph they had seen and which ones they had never viewed before. Even though subjects can recognize previously viewed pictures very well, the memories were not linked to the precise visual form. In addition, subjects failed to detect changes when the images were mirror-reversed. These

Abstract: This essay reflects on the relationship of photographs, history, and memory based on a found and mutilated photo album. Photographs provide opportunities for disrupting and restructuring history with their attraction to memory; they privilege the subjective, creative power of the personal explanation and provide an emotional and even ideological grounding for memory. Photographs as manifestations of memory assist in the process of understanding the present.

As Elizabeth Loftus describes in her book Memory: Surprising New Insights into How We Remember and Why We

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 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.

Nigro and Neisser (1983) studied different perspectives in memories where an individual experiences the memory from an observer’s point of view (third-person perspective) and also when an individual experiences one’s memory as if from their own eyes (field or first-person perspective). First-person perspective has been found to be related to vividness in regards to the amount of details, emotionality and also self-awareness which supports the idea that people experience a memory more strongly when remembering it through a first-person perspective (Rice & Rubin, 2009).

I was also planning to stay away from photography, as I was apprehensive about adding photography to my research paper as I didn’t want it to shift my text around. I found that photography was too much a part of this topic to leave it out, and to discuss the photography without the exhibits would take away from my research. So, I found a way to add them in.

The usage of digital technologies on photography can be obstacle for people to memorize in some circumstances. The popularization of the photographic devises makes photography ubiquitous in recent years. Digital storage has broken the restriction of traditional films, so that many people take photos without making choices. There is no necessary to concern about what is worth to be taken with an easily available devise and large storage space. It seems that every valuable thing and every important moment can be recorded and memorized by taking photos. However, the consequence of emphasizing everything is emphasizing nothing. As mentioned before, photography has lost its scarcity, valuable memories documented by photos are hard to be found because they are buried in a tremendous number of works stored in the digital devices or on the internet.

Back in June I got a text from Ruby creator of Brown Girl With A Camera, asking if I would help her plan a meetup in NYC in August. I jumped at the chance because I’m all about helping and supporting fellow entrepreneurs. I want us all to win! Plus, Brown Girl With A Camera’s mission is awesome read about it here. August is always a busy month for me. Especially this august I had two weddings and my 4 year wedding anniversary. The only date I had available was August 29th. Ruby and I agreed on a date. I got off the phone and got right to work.

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

There was a controversy in terms of photography being considered a form of art. Its versatility deriving into diverse areas such as scientific photography and commercial one makes it hard to be considered a medium of its own artistically. Nowadays, photographs are commonly accepted as an art form being exhibited in museums and galleries. However, it wasn't a breeze originally. The time photography first came into public eyes, there were a lot of doubts cast on photographers about whether or not they could be considered as artists.

Although the relationship between travel and photographing can be traced back in the distant past, the practice of recording experiences in pictures has become especially popular after the Great War. In England from the 1920’s to the 1940’s tourism in the countryside grew dramatically, at the same time cameras were made available to the average household. Individuals lost their dependency from professional artists and photographers, and got the power to photograph a scene according to their perception (Taylor, 1994). With the continuous expansion of urban centres the appeal of rural, undiscovered and unvisited places grew side by side. In a world where changes were too fast to comprehend, people sought refuge in the past and saw the camera as a way to capture the past and take it home with them. Not much has changed since that time. These days people from different social strata still seek for untouched places and authentic experiences, where they can “feel themselves to be in touch both with a ‘real’ world and with their ‘real’ selves” (Handler & Saxton, 1988, p. 243), and photographs are believed to have the capability to capture the spirit of the place and to reproduce what was seen or experienced (Robinson & Picard, 2009).