Representation + Photography
Edited by Manuel Alvarado, Edward Buscombe and Richard Collins
first published 2001 by Palgrave, New York
0-333-61712-6 paperback
Photography, Ideology and Education (1975)
Terry Dennett and Jo Spence
-ongoing work of two practicing photographers, social + documentary photography
-promote interest in photography as a critical educational tool
The medium's idealogical role
p17 - photographs still seen as evidence in which conclusions can be drawn, however text can radically subvert the meaning of the photograph, e.g. fox (fox hunting) or something else, tourist shoot.
'false consciousness arises from the compartmentalisation, mystification and bias of 'knowledge' and as such encourages the inculcation of dominant values which places one area of experience in superiority to all others, thereby invalidating the experience of oppressed groups......' p17
controlling body of what is learnt
oppression a mixture of all three
Patriarchy - systematic discirmination on grounds of sex (sexism)
Capitalism - " " " class (classism)
Imperialism - " " " race (racism)
archeotype / stereotype
manipulation and bias has occured in the image in political campaigns to change an idealogy, a cartoon
p27 "How does one show the believer in the unbiased photograph that they are mistaken? We have approached the problem by listing various stages at which manipulation and bias in the production can occur:
1. in the conciousness of the photographer, and thence in their use of the camera
2 in the darkroom
3 in the editorial process of choosing from a range of photographs
4 by the juxtaposition of different pictures during layout
5 by the addition of text
by considering the context in which it appears (i.e. is it a magazine, a political leaflet, company report, governement handout etc?)"
-Final point raises questions about who the photograph is aimed at
all photos must codify reality in a number of ways - shooting + production stages
"Firstly, their own class, sex, age and race are factors that are usually ignored, and yet these are crucial when one is concerned to understand more clearly the problems of viewing, selecting and evaluating a potential subject for a photograph" p 27-28
Am I not already biased when I have CHOSEN to take the photograph of myself I have already made a choice... may have to accept that some bias is of course inevitable we are free willed beings and so that certain things cannot be avoided. So within reason...
cont.. "Such factors will influence, however unconsously, the technical choices that have to be made for the actual taking of the picture and subsequent processes it undergoes un the developing and printing stages of production" p28
difficult to unravel what is happening
dominant views in history are dependent upon the realistic quality of an image
authentic text
Creating an alternate 'reality'
image we have of ourselves dependent on feedback from other people p33
get a sense of how we are ought to act..
reconstruct an identity for ourselves
children, negative view of ourselves, put ourselves on show
Can reverse this / reexamine with the use of photography
Work with children and showing them theirselves, to see their low sense of visual identity
3
Looking at Photographs (1977)
Victor Burgin
To sell, inform, record, delight p65
theory photography beyond where it has effaced its operations in the 'nothing to explain'
photographs differ from painting/film (which are seen by choice) photographs we see whether we want to or not p66
Semiotics, semiology - study of signs
photographs denote objects in the world
INTERESTIMG, need to refresh memory with the BERGER book
photography never free from the determinations of language itself. We rarely see a photograph in use which does not have a caption or title" p66
p67 "These prior texts, those presupposed by the photograph, are autonomous; they serve a role in the actual text but do not appear in it......... like dream in Frueds description 'laconic', very few words
complex interaction of a plurality of subjectives
not just utterance now in photograph.... the performance of the utterance.
structure of representation - point of view and frame p69
some photographs taken especially deceptively so we have to work out what it is
other photographs we know instantaenously
mirror stage of child development - interesting
observed correleation between formation of identity and formation of images
Lacan
4 looks in thephotograph p71
look of camera as it does pre photographic event
viewer as looking at the photograph
intra dialectic looks between people (actors)
actor directly to the camera
time taken to look at a photograph, nt very long at all
8
Photographs and Narrativity
(1979-80)
Manuel Alvarado
work on the still image and single photograph laves out narrativity p148
Barthes identifies narrative in numerous things, myths legends, plays etc
"a painting is made over a relatively long period of time and appearances are reconstituted by the painter. Whereas a photograph is a trace of appearances, seized from the normal flow of the eyes"
-John Berger p149
implication may be that a photograph is less constructed than a painting, writing or films p148
Cartier Bresson + Berger, photographs freeze movement and thereby stop the flow of events, reinforces this opinion
kinda refutes the narrative possibility of photograph
the analysis of expectation, action, flow, outcome, resolution, etc within them
Barthes rhetoric of the image, distinction between appearance and construction p150
denotation/connotation
how it was, how it could have been is politically more interesting question
central question entered, 'but what is not represented' p154
9
The authentic image
(1979-80)
-interview with john berger and jean mohr
Berger - photograph is more like a trace, like a footprint than a painting (sontag) p166
because paintings are made over a long period of time and appearances reconsttuted by the painter
photography is rather like memory
authentic, its authentic like a trace (assuming no tricks)
in a sense when it has been ripped away from the normal sense of things, it has been ripped away from usual happensing past and present which is the authentic ordinary perception of things
photogrphs are both authentic and not authentic
what you're trying to capture is the memory of people p168
'can the photograph ever capture internal, subjective states?'
talk about being involved in the process on photographing (documentary)
f=photos of the first day will be different than those one week later
Simon Johnson
www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk
Representation + Photography
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