Is Photography Important?
If you are a photographer or have any interests in the medium at all, I think this is worth the read.
An extended thesis from my idea notebook, after I managed to decode my own handwriting.
Freezing the world into moments is how we make sense of passing time. A child’s birthday party, a person crossing the road, a gas station slowly decaying, soldiers in war. Photography transforms the fleeting into the permanent, whether the moment is intimate, mundane, or monumental.
Photography is the most democratic tool we have for claiming that a moment mattered, we were here, this was real.
Of course, with the rise of fake images due to AI, the world sits in a constant state of unknowing and mild fear. But generated images are not, and will never be, photography.
I’ve always been drawn to subjects and corners of life that have nothing to do with me and don’t affect my day to day existence (sports, movies, art, pretty much everything). Photography is the best tool I’ve found for exploring that curiosity. It opens doors to travel, and to people that I might never have reached without it.
I’m not sure how much more I have to say, but I know I have more thoughts. I’ve read a fair number of books on the medium, and I think sharing the words of the photographers and writers who shaped my thinking might ultimately explain the importance of photography to my own mindset better than I can alone.
“I believe photographing people forces an interest in lives other than our own, allowing an opportunity to see ourselves reflected in someone else.” - Curran Hatleberg Photowork
“Gradually, I set myself to try to discover the various ways in which I could play with a camera. From the moment that I began to use the camera and to think about it, however, there was an end to holiday snaps and silly pictures of my friends. I became serious. I was on the scent of something, and I was busy smelling it out.”
- Henri Cartier-Bresson The Mind’s Eye
“I want a history of looking” - Roland Barthes Camera Lucida
“To quote from a movie is not the same as quoting from a book. Whereas the reading time of a book is up to the reader, the viewing time of a film is set by the filmmaker and the images are perceived only as fast or as slowly as the editing permits. Thus, a still, which allows one to linger over a single moment as long as one likes, contradicts the very form of film, as a set of photographs that freezes moments in a life or a society contradicts their form, which is a process, a flow of time. The photographed world stands in the same, essentially inaccurate relation to the real world as stills do to movies. Life is not about significant details, illuminated a flash, fixed forever. Photographs are.” - Susan Sontag On Photography
“Malcom: ‘The dullest, most inept and inconsequential snapshot, when isolated, framed (on a wall or by the margins of a book), and paid attention to, takes on all the uncanny significance, fascination, and beauty of R. Mutt’s fountain…” - Morya Davey quoting Janet Malcom in Index Cards
“Another way of considering composition or space is to think about the beautiful chaos we see in the world” - Joel Meyerowitz How I Make Photographs
“Anyone can hold a camera and snap a photo—this is something that has been well proven in this day and age. But a meaningful image creates something new out of what life presents you with. Therein lies the difference between taking and making photographs. Creative images are secretly complex; they capture moments with a unique perspective and/or composition. For this reason, I believe they must be made with intent and consist of a concept, idea, or direction.” - Andrew Paynter DO/PHOTO/Observe. Compose. Capture. Stand Out.
“But the photographer who leaves the house with one camera, one lens, and one films stock has surely made some crucial formal decisions before setting eyes on anything at all.” - Tim Carpenter To Photograph Is To Learn How To Die