Books Reading

Photography - A Critical Introduction - By Liz Wells - Fifth Edition - Routledge - 2015

My Tutor suggested the critical reading of this book and I am pleased to do it, since I lack knowledge of photography not only as a technical activity, made by technical rules, but also as a way to express myself and my vision.

I was interested to read that in nineteenth-century it was generally accepted that photography was something different from art, but the photographers began to reduce the use of technological production and ensured that the image was out of focus, fuzzy and blurred.

On the other side, writers like Lady Eastlake stressed that photography was not an art. Eastlake stressed also the power of photography as the "sworn witness" of the appearance of things, but reduced photography to a mere technological discovery.

This made me reflect on which result I tried to achieve when I had my first camera in my hands: accurately record the reality, without any mediation. My first desire for the years following was to get the best instrument and the best technicality, in order to achieve the most accurate image.

Now, many years later, I begin to understand that it is not only a matter of technology and technicality. On the contrary, we can turn the limits of present technology to advantage of expressing ideas and personal vision, and "paint with light". Without technological limits there would not be any depth of field, blurring, panning, two dimensions, black & White, perspective, distortion, framing and so on. Everything would be reduced to accurately record and, after all, document reality.

There are other powerful instruments, not easy to develop and manage: interpretation, vision, imagination, creativity etc. I believe that they must be used in order to exploit all the camera's technical limits in advantage of images.

Topics:

The relation between photograph and reality, considering the creative decision when shooting or manipulating image.

Analogic manipulation (mechanical, chemical, optical) vs digital manipulation.

Photograph --> iconic --> authentic --> familiar

Aesthetic conventions

Photography is associated to the idea of progress and modernism.

In 1920s and 1930s photography is the most important modern form of communication.

Modernist photography vs pictorialism: reject all attempts to simulate artistic forms.

Mid-1980s --> Postmodernism.

Understanding a Photograph - By John Berger - Penguin 2005