(Untitled)

[archangelbebop]

Here is my supposition about photographs: The photograph is not the moment. The photograph can never be the moment. It might allow those who were there to relive the moment, or another, but it is not the moment. More often it attempts to construct a moment that never was. Regardless of the attempt, a photograph is always it's own new moment

Comments

[atlasimpure]

The photograph is the moment, as we would have it be.

[archangelbebop]

Or that. I'm worried (as are a bunch of other artsy-types) that digital editting techniques are making this too true. Sure, there's always been air-brushing and photo-manipulation, but there was arguably still a basis in fact in there somewhere, at least for photos where documenting something (as opposed to playing artistically) was the desire.

Sorry for the long reply, had a bad stomach flu.

[archangelbebop]

For the record, I'd also file staged photos (example: flag raising over Iwo Jima) under playing artistically, even if they represented something very important (like the photo of the flag raised over Iwo Jima). Counter example would be Thich Quang Duc on fire. Staged, yes, by the monk. Photographer might have known about it. Monk might have known about the photographer. Something is still different in comparing the situation of the two. There's a thin line, but I argue that there is a line somewhere in there.

But all the other ones, the ones you had to be there for, the ones that the photographer had to be there for: the east german soldier leaping over the barbed wire, the man with the bags standing in front of the tank in tienammen square. The capturing of future moments like these is somewhat threatened by the ability to drastically alter them and yet still have them feel real.

[lynore]

There are studies out there on memory, one that comes to mind was on war and violent upheaval. They (sorry I can't be more specific, I am dredging this up from grad school haze) found that people couldn't *really* remember the moments they actually took part in. What they remembered were the photos and the memories they truly did have conformed to fit the photos

[archangelbebop]

I'd be interested to see the results of a similar study conducted on people who were not potential PTSD sufferers (which I know from personal experience plays hob with memory formation), and compare them to the results of the study with the war images/being there thing.

I'd agree that photos can be touchstones for memories; I don't think there's many average-lifed people in the western world that haven't looked at a photo at some point and had a violent flood of memory.

The thing I was thinking about when I wrote this was regarding why people choose to MAKE photos. At least I think it was. It was late.