Fall for Fall

"Photographs are ubiquitous: in albums, magazines, books, shop windows, on bill-boards, carrier bags, cans. What does this signify? Thus far, reflection has suggested the thesis that these images signify concepts in a program and that they program society to act as though under a secondary magical spell. However, for people who look at photographs naively they signify something different, i.e. states of things that have been reflected onto surfaces. For these people, photographs represent the world itself. Admittedly, such naive observers will concede that the states of things are reflected onto surfaces from specific points of view but they won't worry too much about that. Any philosophy of photography will therefore seem to them a complete waste of mental energy."

                                                                     -Vilem Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography


I have spent a long time looking at photographs. And I have gone through different stages of looking. 

What first attracted me to photography was the technical aspect of development and printing. This became my philosophy and my way of appraising work. I was not so much concerned by content as much by understanding the invisible technique of the master printer.

At a certain point, I became interested in, and invested in, the the use of photography to document time and history. By this I mean reportage, news, and documentary photography. Here, I think I felt most disappointed.

I was more disappointed by the photographers. I expected great photographs to come from great people. However, I often found that great documentary photographs came from horrible people. And I mean horrible. It's hard to believe in a photograph when one does not believe in the person taking it.

Graduate school has seen me transition into yet another stage of photo-philosophy. Academic. This simply means that I think more about photos than I take or make them. Which is not a bad thing. Photographs are interesting objects. It's amazing that those shinny, flat, rectangular things on your wall support entire academic departments in nearly every university and museum in the world, take up whole scholarly careers, and fill the subject matter of countless books.

You can go to any K-mart and make your own photograph in minutes. You cannot go to K-mart and make your own statue, your own piece of music, or your own painting. Photos are interesting things to think about. 

The nice thing I have to report is that it has become simple for me. I like a photograph that asks a question, or leaves me asking a question about myself.

Most photography does not do this, as Flusser suggests. Much of photography projects a sort of fantasy onto life that we enjoy like chocolate.

The next time you have occasion to look at a photograph, even waiting in line at the grocery store, ask it if it has a question for you. If you do this earnestly, you will be surprised to find that most photographs do not ask questions but more often tell you how to think.

"A photograph is not the possession of a moment, it is the moment between before and after. It's fragile from interpretation and certainty."
                                                                      -Owen Butler