Below are some of my favorite quotes from the reading:
“We photographers deal in things that are constantly vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth which can bring them back again.”
I think this is extremely inspiring in that the previous moment will never be exactly like a future one. Personally, I have so many times stopped and thought about the concept of time and how there is no way to relive a moment. Photography operates as this really special medium, though, that allows us to take snapchats of a moment that will never repeat itself. Every photograph is unique in that it is taken in a snapshot of time on some subject matter from a unique angle (unique in the sense that no one is taking the photo at that moment from that exact place).
“Today everything exists to end in a photograph.”
This is the other side of photography. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone holds up there phone at some event that is being professionally recorded the entire time. In understand personally wanting to have some documentation of an event. But, the purest form of taking in a moment is to see it with your own eyes and feel it. The act of taking a photo or video can often time detract from actually living out a moment to its fullest. There is obviously a fine line between the two.
“Making suffering loom larger, by globalizing it, may spur people to feel they ought to ‘care’ more. It also invites them to feel that the sufferings and misfortunes are too vast, too irrevocable, too epic to be much changed by any local political intervention.”
I just thought this perspective was a really poor outlook on life in general. I don’t see anything wrong with capturing suffering as long as it doesn’t had to any sort of humiliation. The idea though that we should ignore painful subject matter because people may think that “sufferings and misfortunes are too vast…” is just small minded.
“Photographers sometimes take pictures of each other; occasionally they take photographs – or versions – of each other’s work. Consciously or not they are constantly in dialogue with their contemporaries and predecessors.”
I think this is a good point in that any work in general is a continuation of previous work. We are constantly building on what those before us have done. This creates more of a conversation and a response to what’s already done. I think that being well informed and knowing other people’s work will allow us to expand and grow our craft.
- “Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.”
— Anonymous - “The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.”
— Andy Warhol - “Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”
— Marc Riboud
My favorite photographers thus far:
Alfred Stiglitz
Paul Strand
Dorothea Lange
Nick Brandt
Below are some photos from the previous photographers (1 from each, as well as one my friend took). I think all of them show a grit and a realness that is very appealing to me. Obviously photography has a very subjective side to it. These photos make me feel and come off as sincere.
