Frame 3

How Photography Changed the World

Throughout your day, do more than a few minutes go by when you don’t see a photographic image? Photography is like the mystical “Force” of Star Wars—it flows around us and through us. It is the way we see the world and oftentimes the way we experience it. Yet we have a strange, internal conflict concerning those photographs that we see. We will in one moment believe what a photograph shows us, and in the next, look at it with suspicion. The image is simultaneously fact and illusion.

It’s difficult to know if Monsieur Daguerre, on that summer day in 1839, understood the full implications of what he was unleashing upon the world. Since that time, photography has inevitably, relentlessly shaped and reshaped our self-perception by altering the way we interact with the world. It has allowed us to see things unseen before its invention. Just think of the X-Ray, the cathode ray tube, the electron scanning microscope, the Hubble orbiting telescope and every robotic probe launched into space, to name a few.

Photography has allowed us to experience life in ways and in places that would never be within our means to experience. You need only go to your Imax theater at the local science center to see and feel what I’m talking about. Photography brings fantasy, whimsy and escapist fare to television and the local Cineplex. (I count movies and T.V. as the children of photography.) Photography did some of these aforementioned things from its inception. As the technology expanded from negative/prints, to motion pictures, to video, to digital capture technology, our relationship with the images in magazines, movies and television has evolved as well.

Our use of these new wonderments that instantaneously present us with pictures and sound has become an enthrallment. They are our constant companions; life would be intolerable, unthinkable without them. They capture and broadcast our personal and societal narcissism exquisitely, perfectly. Our present viewing devices—computers, smart phones, digital tablets and e-readers—shower us with images sent from friends, illustrations imbedded in digital news reports and magazines, and unrelenting advertisements. We are bombarded with photographic images from their analog brethren as well, all creating an unending stream of empty photographic imagery.

Now close your eyes and try to think of life (the world) without ever having seen a photograph. You really can’t. How different would your life be if you gave up looking at the avalanche of images? Could you bear it without them? We unconsciously sort through them, paying attention only to some. What criteria do you use in your sorting process? What do you think the future holds for image making? Is it so abundant that it will lose its impact on society, on you? Has it already? Do you see a time when you won’t be adding to the millions, if not billons, of photographs taken every day?

Tell me what you think.

Frame 3A

Addendum:

http://blog.1000memories.com/94-number-of-photos-ever-taken-digital-and-analog-in-shoebox

http://mashable.com/2011/01/04/facebook-photos-750-million/

http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/Our_Company/History_of_Kodak/Imaging-_the_basics.htm

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_33/b4143050841728.htm

Frame 2

Photography as Memory–Squares of Paper

If a natural disaster, such as a flood, fire or tornado were about to strike your home, would the box of family photos be amongst the items you tried to save? I ask this after listening to a segment on a public radio program called The Story about a man who lost everything in the 2011 tornado in Joplin, Missouri. It was followed by an interview with a woman who has spent the last year attempting to find, archive and reunite photos dispersed by the storm with the people who lost them. Their stories made me think about how photographs—which help reconstitute fading memories—have become even more transient due to digital technology.

Up until the recent past, photography was not quite a luxury so much as a semi- expensive undertaking. I remember taking a trip across the country with my Kodak Instamatic, shooting photos of everything that interested me (and there was a lot to interest a 14-year-old boy). I used up my allotted film and upon returning home was able to afford processing and printing for only a few of the rolls. I still have several of the spent film cassettes in my desk patiently awaiting development.

Taking pictures was a slow and conscious, as well as self-conscious process. It was a formal act, a memorial act that transcended the moment of the shutter opening and closing. It became an activity integrated into the importance of everything that happened during that special day—a family reunion, a trip to Disneyland, a proud shot of the new car, and so on.

With a note written on the back of the photo, any future family member had access to the meaning of that image. The picture was durable and could last a century; it had a forever quality because the technology of film-based photography had been evolving over 100 years, and the bugs were worked out, at least for black & white. After the roll of film came back from the drugstore, the photographs with their corresponding negatives entered a book or box for safekeeping. Our parents pulled them them out from time to time (or as a seasonal ritual) in order to show us or remind us of something personal, familial or momentous.

This rumination leads me to wonder how photography in its electronic incarnation will hold up to time. A digital file can’t fade, but it can become corrupted. We now don’t have to worry about the cost of film and so are free to photograph as much and as often as we want. Will we wade through the 500 shots taken at baby’s first birthday party? If not, then do they have an importance for remembering that event? If we do save them, is the photo-filled box, loaded with tangible reminders, replaceable with a Facebook page or an account on Tumblr? Will we lose some form of connection to those events when we no longer have tactile contact with our memories?

Tell me what you think.

Frame 2A

Addendum: This is the link to The Story. Host Dick Gordon interviewed Tom Cook about his experiences in the tornado. (There is a photo of Cook on The Story holding a picture of his wife as he stands surrounded by what was once his home and neighborhood. Gordon also interviewed Angela Walters, who has spent the last year collecting photos lost from the storm. You can check it out here: http://thestory.org/archive/The_Story_52212.mp3/view. 
And here’s a link to the Facebook page where the photos are archived waiting to be reunited with their owners: 
http://www.facebook.com/lostphotosofjoplin.

Frame 1

Why This Blog?

Any of you who know me, know that I avoid most things involving the Web. However, overcoming my reticence, I have decided to tackle a blog about photography. The digital age has for some time been in full force, and with that change comes new and challenging prospects and problems for the photography world. What makes me qualified to add my voice to the countless other photo-blog pontificators?

Well, I have been involved with photography for 30 years both as a fine artist and commercial artist, and I’ve taught on the college level for the past 11 years. Besides being a photographer and teacher, I’ve also spent years researching the life of photographer William Mortensen (1897-1965) to the point that some consider me an expert on his life and work. I’m also a regular contributor to Black & White, a well-respected journal dedicated to fine art photography. In sum, I enjoy writing, and I love thinking about photography and its profound effects on everyone’s life. At this time in my life, I feel I am ready to write about it.

Those of you who’ve taken any of my classes know that I love to ask questions, lots of questions. With that in mind, I’ve decided that this blog will be less about spewing nuggets of wisdom and more about posing questions. I hope that in response, you will add comments and photographs of your own to the conversation. In addition, it would be great if you commented on each other’s entries—a bit like a chat room, but with a more philosophical bent. Hence the blog name “Dialogs in Photography.” (I chose the more colloquial Middle English spelling of dialog over the more formal Old French)

I have decided to make my entries approximately 500 words. This is a challenge to myself to be succinct and in recognition of the average person’s intolerance or lack of desire to commit to reading something very long. Time for most of us is in short supply, and having competition with other electronic imperatives makes it desirable to cut down on bloviation.

Every two weeks—give or take—a new essay will be posted. This should give everyone enough time to digest and comment on the questions in that particular essay. In other words, I want your feedback—the good, the bad and the ugly. It is my fervent hope that this will be an interactive blog, not a passive one. As in my classes, I invite challenge and verbal tussles. From conflict often comes insight, understanding and growth.

I want to stimulate an ongoing discourse about how photography has changed the world, in a social and not physical sense. (Although it has added to pollution and global warming, but what hasn’t?) I also want to explore how photography itself is changing. I am not going to be stating anything that photography wonks haven’t already covered. The difference will be, as the great Alex Trebek reminds his contestants, to state my answer in the form of a question.

Tell me what you think.

Frame 1A

Addendum: I will often use this as a way of listing books, articles or sites that apply to the essay. In regards to this essay, some of the photo critics and historians that I like to read and that you may find interesting are: Vicki Goldberg, Keith Davis, A.D. Coleman, Luc Sante, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Andy Grundberg, Robert Adams, John Berger, Steve Edwards and a whole host of photographers who have written essays on their own and others’ work. I urge you to seek them out. As for DVDs, the Contact Series 1, 2 and 3 are all excellent (but sadly out of print). The series combines a variety of photographers working in the same loose genre of photography. We are given a 20-minute journey for each artist, hearing them discuss their photographs and how they go about selecting the perfect image, out of many, on their contact sheets. You might also take a look at the BBC series titled The Genius of Photography, which you may still be able to see on YouTube.

(I would also like to thank Dean Brierly for looking these over and giving me his expert editorial input)