I wrote this short diatribe for a reading response in IAT 244, Digital Photography at SFU. I must admit I’m finding the class less than stimulating and I feel that it’s because there is no incentive from the professors to create an environment of artistic exploration. The assignments are dry and pointless, the critique unispired and formalistic and the methodology a dated form of modernist values. There’s more to photography than a beautiful shot and there’s more to art than technical proficiency.

Considering the Photographer

I think it’s important to put into context my position in writing this journal exercise on our readings for class. I have read such essays before, over and over again with initial fervour and dedication of a new student and eventually with the tired repetition of a graduate who is grasping for something of a sea change. Writing on artists is an interesting practice, but I would like to make the point that it’s not necessary in the understanding of art, history and the situation of visual practice in society.
Behind every photograph is someone who took it. This is true. However, by the time it reaches the viewer, the person behind the frame is the person looking at it. A viewer is positioned behind a static viewpoint that they have to negotiate through their own understanding, and not that of the artist. In fact, I would go so far to say that any discussion of the artist in a personal tone is pure celebrity used to inflate the importance of their mediation of the technology and brand them as an asset in an art market.
The methodologies of these artists, discussed in these various essays, could be useful to an aspiring photographer. Coming to understand that the use and relationship with the camera is diverse and there is no right way to use it as a medium is a priceless lesson, but I wonder at it’s impact in a class that stresses the compartmentalization of technical skills. In the bullet proof format of power point, the logical categorization of what would be considered the “foundational skills” in photography fit with this section of readings like two mismatched puzzle pieces. With an assignment focused entirely on exploring a technique, rather than a concept, there is no praxis to be gleaned from the methodological contemplations of Purcell, Arbus or Model. Their work was not about their use or circumvention of photographic technique, but rather an exploration of the photographic frame, it’s use as document (or lack thereof) and the quintessential nature of how we view society. Or, at least in this case, how Model and others saw society in New York during a very specific period in history.
As a photographer, there is a need to consider myself. I need to consider my paradigms and assumptions, look at what I’m interested in looking at, documenting and why. There is also an interesting subtext brought with the popular use of Photoshop. The photograph is no longer about the truth (if it ever was), as the truth is twisted through the pastiche and hyper reality of photo manipulation. So what is the changed role of the photographer? It feels not like the romantic icon of a person physically snapping the shutter and trying to gleam moments of honesty, integrity or interest in the in between that has been perpetuated with post modern dark room conceptual photography. The photographer now is the manipulator. The frame of the photograph is not a window to what was, but the realm of interactive negotiation in the viewer over what elements are to be believed, which are transparent and when it simply doesn’t matter any more.