Secondly, he discusses how the camera represents reality. Firstly, the power of photography and its ability to reproduce autographic images, that is to say photography can reproduce unique pieces of art. This in effect contradicts the argument that photos are objective.īenjamin’s seminal essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction highlights two main issues concerning photography. Bourdieu bases his argument on the fact that photography is used as a social practice. Bourdieu uses the example of the pose to dismiss Barthes and Bazin’s argument, by suggesting that the camera forces an unnatural pose, causing the person to present an idealised image of the self according to social codes of behaviour, and to illustrate a particular class. Bourdieu believes that as Sturken and Cartwright suggest images involve some degree of subjective choice, whether it is by the photographer or the people in the photo. On the other hand the issue of photography being subjective is supported by Pierre Bourdieu and Walter Benjamin. He assumes like Bazin that photos capture reality and are therefore used as records of evidence of existence. However, Barthes also explains how we interpret images, through the use of studium and punctum.
Bazin focuses of the preservation of existence as does Barthes. Andre Bazin and Roland Barthes share the view that photographs are objective records of reality.
They explain, ‘It is a paradox of photography that although we know that images can be ambiguous and are easily manipulated or altered… much of the power of photography still lies in the shared belief that photographs are objective or truthful records of events.’ (2002: 17) In other words Cartwright and Sturken explain that photographs can be manipulated through methods of framing and selection, yet there is still a belief that photos represent reality, an objective truth. Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright address the discussion of photography’s ability to be subjectivity and objectivity.
A short extract from an essay I wrote in 2012
0 kommentar(er)
