Reading Response: The Photographer's eye , Light and Lens:Photography in the digital age

Both of these essays helped expand my knowledge on photography as a whole and its history in particular. John Szarkowski, author of The photographers eye, started his essay with talking about the radical difference that photography has from all other forms of art. It is completely it own thing. Photography can be practiced by thousands who share no common training or tradition. The author talks about the immortality of the captured moment and how once the picture is taken it is now in the past. I love how he  said that photographs not instant but are time exposures which vary in duration.

 Robert Hirsch, author of  Light and Lens: Photography in the digital age, wrote more about the history of photography and its overall progression. I was so interested in the evolution of the photographic imaging. I though that it was so cool to learn about how past photographers altered their images before the invention of things like Photoshop. I thought it was so interesting how the miniature painters painted directly on the daguerreotypes and calotypes. I cant imagine physically painting each individual picture trying to work on every little detail on such a small canvas. It put things into perspective on how much easier photography is today.

Reading Response: Photography and memory

Many people see photographs as just memories but there is so much to them and these articles have an interesting point on how we manipulate out memories. We the photographers are choosing the exact moment which we want to freeze in time. Sometimes we even edit or move things around in order to change the esthetic of the picture. Yes, this is art but it isn’t a memory because it has been altered and changed. Photographs can bring us back to a certain memory but a photograph its self is not a memory. The author said, “In the case of photographs, we have more power over the process of retaining and forgetting.” This is so true. We have the power to choose what we want to remember about that exact moment and what parts we want to edit out. When I was in Fiji I hiked to the highest point of the island that I was living on and I got to take some amazing photos but the photos that I took were of memories that I wanted to keep. I took photos of the amazing views of the mountains and ocean and I left out the parts like when I had to stop about 5 times to catch my breath or when I was sweating like a pig because of the scorching heat. I chose what parts I wanted to remember and left out the other parts because they were not as pleasant. In several years when I look back to the photos I took all I will remember is how beautiful the views were and I will start to forget about the rest because they were not photographed so I probably will start to forget some of the stories.