May 18, 2005
getting closer to a day in our life
© Larry Towell, 2000, Stephen Bulger Gallery, Courtesy of Photo-London
The photographs being shown at the current world-photo exhibition in London may signal the point in time at which even the most isolated events in far-off places can be experienced in near-real-time by anyone who tunes in to a web broadcast of current news (or fashion or cultural fetish). The medium of photography, I think, is just now beginning to show its potential as a universal means of communication -- in all of its wonderful and various modes of sincerity, cynicysm, humanity, horror, and celebration of bizarre behavior. Have you taken a photograph this week? Why? Or why not?
Comments
The medium of photography, I think, is just now beginning to show its potential as a universal means of communication
Surely you jest! What you’re commenting on is a function of advances in telecommunications, not photography per se. Peering back into the mists of time (but not really all that far, photography is not even 200 years old) we can see all of the same elements you comment on here present nearly at the beginning of the medium. Certainly the advent of the Kodak Brownie truly opened the door to mass use of photography for individual expression and communication.
In fact, one could make the argument that such an increase in the volume of photographs produced actually decreases the effectiveness of each individual photograph as we become buried in increasing numbers of pet and baby snapshots, not to mention the proliferation of paperazzi pics that line the newstand.
I’m not saying there aren’t amazing advances taking place in the medium, I just think grand pronouncements such as this lack a certain perspective on what’s come before.
Todd—
It’s not meant to be a grand pronouncement. Certainly, photographs of the US civil war (and a century later, the Vietnam war) revealed the potency of a photographic image to portray the devastation of war to audiences that were geographically dispersed at the time, and to those of us viewing the images across vast periods of time.
However, I do think that the convergence of the internet (thereby breaking down geographic, economic and social boundaries, and providing a more democratic for sharing and distributing images) has been a boon to photography. The proliferation of means to capture digital photos quickly, easily and inexpensively has also encouraged many more people to consider photography as an option for communicating than the Brownie camera ever did.
I’m not saying the preponderance of images is all good. But I do think people are taking pictures of events and things that they might not have photographed with film, because photography allows one to capture images without any incremental cost, and because they can then share those images, perhaps instantly, with people around the world. And that is allowing the medium of photogaphy to flower more than ever.
Thanks for your comment. I appreciate the dialogue.