Relation of Photography and Reality - authors

<p>Hello!<br>

I am working on my dissertation and need some authors that point that discussion: if photographs can be true or are an illusion.<br>

I would very much appreciate your help in naming serious authors, books, articles....</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

 

<p>A very practical approach to the language of photography is displayed by Andreas Feininger in Total Picture Control.<br>

A far more theoretical and philosophical author is Roswell Angier in his book Train Your Gaze which is mainly about portraiture, but covers many kinds of people photography.<br>

Good luck. </p>

<p>Another good book to read, somewhat controversial but also insightful, is Susan Sontag's <em>On Photography.</em></p>

<p>Regarding books on the philosophy of photography, the most common recommendations include:</p>

<ul>

<li><em>Camera Lucida - Reflections on Photography</em>, by Roland Barthes</li>

<li><em> On Photography</em>, by Susan Sontag</li>

<li><em>Classic Essays on Photography</em>, edited by Alan Trachtenberg</li>

</ul>

<p>Of the three, Barthes seemed most relevant to me. He writes like I think. I found Sontag's book so dour and such a chore to read that I never finished it.</p>

<p>Regarding truth and illusion, photographs are both. Among my many documentary photos of people I've come to know well, you could take any one out of context and conclude "I see from this photograph that this particular person is..." and assign some attributes based on your perception of that photograph. And it might be true, partially true or completely inaccurate - in terms of the nature of the subject of the photograph. But it would be very true in terms of the viewer's perceptions, because perceptions, emotions and impressions are always "true", even when based on misconceptions, illusions and lies.</p>

All photographs are true. No photograph tells the whole truth except about itself.

 

You might want to read Stephen Shore's "The Nature of Photographs" and Robert Adams has done some good writing on

this subject too , .

<p>One way to approach the topic is to visit the local law school and read the cases and texts that discuss admissibility of photographs in a court of law. (Google "admissibility of photographs in court" for a start). Central to the admissibility of the photograph is whether it is an accurate representation of the scene depicted in the photograph. By reading the discussions on when they are, and perhaps more importantly not admissible, the philosophical discussion is reduced to concrete examples. Such a discussion may be a good departure point for a broader discussion. </p>

<p>By the way, if this is a serious dissertation and in some way related to philosophy, which it seems to be since it's about truth and illusion and also since you posted it in this forum, you might want to spend a little time considering whether a lot of notions of "truth" (photographic or otherwise) are actually illusions in themselves. It might be a bit of a quagmire, so it probably wouldn't be wise to spend a whole lot of time on it, but reading some stuff simply on different notions of truth might be both stimulating and helpful.</p>

<p><a href="

a very brief statement by Richard Rorty about pragmatism and Truth, which might get you started. And <a href="http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-7/richard-rorty-on-truth-and-language">HERE'S</a> a very brief article explaining Rorty a bit more. These are just shallow introductions. It's up to you whether further reading would be in order for your purposes. Since the article is brief, I will just share a bunch of it here, which includes some of Nietzsche's ideas, which I think can easily be related to photography:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that truth is out there. To say that the world is out there, that is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states. To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.</p>

<p>Truth cannot be out there—cannot exist independently of the human mind—because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world in its own—unaided by the describing activities of human beings—cannot …</p>

<p>The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak …</p>

<p>It was Nietzsche who first explicitly suggested that we drop the whole idea of ‘knowing the truth’. But in abandoning the traditional notion of truth, Nietzsche did not abandon the idea of discovering the causes of our being what we are … In his view, in achieving this sort of self-knowledge we are not coming to know a truth which was out there (or in here) all the time. Rather, he saw self-knowledge as self-creation. The process of coming to know oneself, confronting one’s contingency, tracking one’s causes home, is identical with the process of inventing a new language … So the only way to trace home the causes of one’s being as one is would be to tell a story about one’s causes in a new language …</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Photos may not tell truths as much as they tell stories, many creative ones inventing new visual languages and revealing the photographer's own self-creation.</p>

<p>Indeed, the nature of truth is itself a thorny philosophical issue, Ana. If you are attempting to address your OP within this context, you may wish to research different theories of truth. Fred provided you with a jump-start for your research. Here's a link to a set of articles in Stanford University's online encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=theory+of+truth</p>

<p>At this point, I suggest you consider that photographs can be (and a lot are, in fact) representational and highly "realistic." Others, such as many of the abstract images you can view on this site, may lack such characteristics. It therefore is possible to view photographs of the first type as "true" (your word) and those of the second type as "an illusion." In my opinion, though, this distinction may be unhelpful given the multifaceted purposes of photography.</p>

<p>Hmm. Ellis' world seems to be rather 2-dimensional to me :-) For the rest I agree with him.</p>

<p>You should look at, and read about, the work of Marcel Duchamp. He beautifully got to the heart of the matter by taking a printed drawing of a pipe and writing under it (in French) "this is not a pipe" i.e. its a lithograph of a drawing of a pipe. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>"this is not a pipe" </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Rene Magritte was the author of this work.</p>

<p>Dear all,<br>

thank you very much for all the responses. I will take some time going through your recommendations.<br>

Sorry not to have mentioned at the beginning that it is a dissertation on Photography, but as it is a topic 'thinking' about photography I found a better place under Philosophy, than any other. Everything is helpful. Thanks again.<br>

Ana</p>

<p>As usual, Fred G. has great insight. I remember a conversation with Ansel Adams from many years ago that photographs are made between the ears and the camera is only the device that makes it possible for others to see them. </p>

<p>Ana:<br>

Do not forget that photography has very broad spectrum of intentions and aplications. Scientific photography is helping to record (ex.archeology) and/or explore (study of the universe, Huble telescope) our reality. </p>

<p>Ana: I wish you well on your dissertation. It might help for you to keep in mind that philosophical issues arise in connection with many disciplines (if not all) and with many genres of art. Before physics, before psychology, before photography - there was philosophy.</p>

<p>Ana, it might be helpful to let us know a little more specifics of what you're looking for. Can you narrow it a bit...this is a broad subject...</p>

<p>+1 for Sontag's "On Photography"</p>

<p>And for something less abstract and dense but no less important, some fiction of only a few pages to get you in the mood for deeper analysis, might I suggest Italo Calvino's "The Adventure of a Photographer". It is on the web, in the open domain, and can be found here:<br>

<a href="http://beauty.gmu.edu/AVT459/AVT459-001/Calvino.pdf">http://beauty.gmu.edu/AVT459/AVT459-001/Calvino.pdf</a><br>

I wrote a blog post giving my take on this story - and what it tells me about photography and finding signals in noise - a start to finding 'truth' (whatever that is). It can be found here:<br>

<a href="http://johnpetro.zenfolio.com/blog/2013/10/italo-calvinos-the-adventure-of-a-photographer">http://johnpetro.zenfolio.com/blog/2013/10/italo-calvinos-the-adventure-of-a-photographer</a></p>

 

<p>The reality is what you see, consider to be real, and sometimes photograph. It may not be so for others, friends or not. Real can be implied in a photograph, notwithstanding its 2D, instantaneous capture and and other limitations.</p>

<p>I like Barthe's book as well, and had the same problem as some others with Sontag's. </p>

<p>Good luck. It is apparently a cyclical rather than a linear or Cartesian consideration.</p>

<p>In addition to the texts Lex listed you might check Henri van Lier: "Philosophy of Photography", it's a bit academic ("Photographs are therefore fragments of reality within the (double) frame of the real.") - but may provide some different perspective than the canonical sources (like "On photography").<br /> <br /> Other interesting reading may be "The reflexive Photographer": "by taking photo after photo, I come closer to truth and reality at the very intersection of the fragmentary nature of the world and my own personal sense of time.", Daido Moriyama<br /><br /> On a lighter note:<br /> "Art = the lie that tells the truth.<br /> Art history: the truth about the lie. <br />Aesthetics = the truth that the lie about the truth is the truth.", <br>

<a href="https://twitter.com/NeinQuarterly">Nein Quarterly</a></p>

 

<p>Photograph may not tell the whole truth but All photographs are true.<br>

You might want to read John Freeman's "Photo Graphy" </p>

<div></div>

<p>"Photos may not tell truths as much as they tell stories, many creative ones inventing new visual languages and revealing the photographer's own self-creation"</p>

<p>An element of truth always exists in a photograph it is not a pure imaginative construction but has a strong element of visual recording. It often has its own imaginative/reality truth where the photographer is just a bystander....the photographers understanding is little different from the viewer.</p>

<p>A photograph often takes a life on its own as it shakes hands with imagination and reality to create another reality of truths...perceiving those truths and understanding is an intellectual process.</p>

<p>The story is something you read in books a photograph exists in a partnership between imagination and realities. Understanding a photograph is about understanding the significance of a hand shake.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Forget the story book.</p>

<p>A photograph is unique it is not a verbal dilatation ( if we talk about it being Art with sufficient verbal viscosity then it will be Art....the Art is in the words not the Art ) a photograph is very special and different.....yes, it has special place of its own....different from other Arts. It goes.....somewhere else.</p>

<p>The somewhere else is a percieved/imaginative reality joining with truth of a image... all copies of reality contain truths, non more than the cold photographic image.... Unique in the Arts... the most powerful of Artistic impressions></p>

<p>Truths are about individual pre perception based on values and culture. We dismiss truths we do not want to hear and value those we like. For instance we dismiss the truths of hunger and destruction of our planet.....but believe in a likeable truth that eventually one day it will be better.</p>

<p>A photograph is a frozen moment in time without a future or past.</p>

<p>That it all it offers anything else is pure conjecture. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Has my posts been so intellectually blinding... reaching a essence of truth that non of you folk are intellectually capable of penning a response.</p>

<p>If you think it is BS say so. But nice to say why.</p>

<p>Promise I not will not cry....okay, just a little bit.</p>