Photographs can be a physical or immaterial form of art that is widely accepted and utilized by all. Photographs help capture a moment and preserve the memory within them so that others who also view it, are able to see what the photographer saw through similar eyes. Every person has taken a photo, whether it’s of a building, a piece of food, or another artwork from their phone or digital camera. In Susan Sontag’s essay, “On Photography”, she discusses how photographs have been essential throughout history and people’s everyday life because of how they certify that the moment taken was real and that the experience was lived. Photography, according to her, furnishes evidence and reveals the moment and what was happening.
Photographs mirror what has been seen by the photographer and captures experiences as it was viewed. Sontag describes photography as the remains of a memory that allows people to take “…possession of a past that is unreal…”(6). She provides an example of how a one full-page ad showed a small group of people and they’re all pressed together being excited. We don’t know exactly what they were happy about, but through the emotions and facial expressions taken by the photo, we know how they were feeling and we end up feeling it too. Photos reveal emotions and portray them even though we never experienced the exact memory. However, Elena Martinique in her article “When Staged Photography Becomes Art”, believes the opposite. She illustrates how photos conceal because there are staged photographs now that have been manipulated for artistic purposes. People could be posing for a photo acting joyful but the second the camera goes down, they can think differently since they had a “director” to tell them how to create the emotions and events.
In my opinion, photographs are able to reveal, but they are limited. We will never know the thought process behind the photographer and how they were feeling but we are able to be empathetic with the photo illustration based on how it is expressed. If it was a photo of a scenery, like poachers hunting a lion, emotions are revealed. I am made to feel sorry for the lion through a single photograph that was taken and I’m also able to interpret the scene and what is going on, as it could be self-explanatory. Even if it had the potential to be staged, it still delivered the message of feeling pitiful. Furthermore, if it was a photo of a tree, what I see is revealed to me. The only thing concealed is why a photographer would want to take a picture. It could’ve reminded them of a different tree and that’s why they took a photo or maybe they just wanted to share with viewers what they thought was cool. The photographer’s thought process behind the photo is concealed, but the exact photograph is able to reveal emotions and imagery exactly how it has been taken.
I agree with Michaela. We will never know the full story of a photograph since we don’t know the context behind it-why the author chose to take this photo, why they chose to take it in this specific way. However, I think there’s also a beauty to that because everyone will have their own interpretation of the photo’s significance and these different opinions help us to connect on a deeper level and have such a deep and complex society such as the one we live in now.
I love how you talk about the uses of photography in being able to capture a moment, whether that be in the present or the past, and how that relates to people viewing the image. I completely agree when you say that photographs help to certify the moment being real and that it was an experience that was lived.
I definitely agree with you that there is a certain extent of mystery behind photos, which I believe comes into play when people decide to post on social media. A lot of people tend to post only parts of a photo or they edit it or put together collages, all of which make it more and more difficult for anyone viewing the photo(s) to know the photographer’s exact thought process behind the photo. It adds a certain exclusivity to the photo that not everyone has access to, which is an interesting way of looking at it.
I definitely agree with how you talked about the way that photos are made with the emotions they are meant to evoke in mind. We can never take a picture that we see for the full reality of what happened outside of it. With that being said, we can still have a certain appreciation for the beauty of the picture itself.