What is Photography?
The question of “What is Photography,” on the surface, is very simple. Photography is a form of art that captures any certain moment in that very instant. People often use photography to store memories and reminisce about past experiences. However, a lot of people overlook the importance the camera had (and still has) on our modern world.
After reading Vilem Flusser’s Towards a Philosophy of Photography, I was reminded of the philosophies of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno. These two thinkers in particular focused on the increased mechanization of the arts with the advent of the camera. Both thinkers were concerned with the loss of the “aura” - or, to Flusser, the “magic” - of an artist’s work. With art becoming more and more reproducible throughout the twentieth century, more people had access to cheap copies of works like the Mona Lisa or The Starry Night. While this concern existed already in literature, art seemed to be something held more sacred in tradition throughout the history of humanity. While Adorno might lament this loss of the “magic” of art, Flusser seems to be in the other camp. Because of art’s accessibility to the masses, anyone is able to discuss and analyze en masse.
Especially in photography, this is more true than ever. While, as a film student, I find photography to be particularly limiting, especially since it lacks movement and sound. However, photography, unlike other still-image arts, is able to capture a moment and preserve it forever. This allows the audience to focus not only on the subject but the photo as a whole, whether that includes certain symbols or features of a background. Since photography must take place in the real world, the photographer’s job is to make it interesting. Modern technology - such as digital cameras, cellphones, and webcams - are able to turn everyone into a “photographer,” a true photographer must take the extra step in establishing something truly original, which is something Flusser states in the middle of his book. While it might not necessarily possess a certain “magic” that most of humanity is used to, any innovative photographer (or filmmaker) can capture that evokes a physical, emotional, or mental reaction in their audience.
As someone who has worked at a major computer store during my semester away from the University of Rochester, I can definitely agree with a lot of Vilem Flusser’s statements of a camera as an apparatus, or tool, for human beings to use to capture a certain symbol, person, or scene. Since our brains become more and more unreliable with age, information often gets lost or mistranslated to other people. The idea that “history is written by the victor” is still held to this day, but it has certainly shaken up with the invention of the camera capturing other perspectives. The most obvious example would be war, especially those of the twentieth century. The World Wars, Vietnam, Korea, the Arab Spring - these wars would not have had the same impact on society without the invention of the camera. As a tool, the camera performs a function beyond image capture: information storage and access.
