I really enjoyed Campany’s article. In our photo-obsessive
culture, we have become fixated on documenting every single moment of our
lives, fearful that each moment will cease to have existed without photographic
evidence. Campany was correct in his analysis of photographing before, during,
and after a scene in both the sense of an event happening over time but also
concurrent with the maturity of photography and as a field and technical manner
of representation. As Campany discusses, it wasn’t until photography’s rapid
expansion after the 1920 did photography become a “modulator of an event as a
moment, an instant, something that can be frozen and examined”. Photography
became our main reference point. As much as we rely on the news for second to
second updates of what is going on in the world, we survive off the pictures
that encapsulate an event. A photo taken after an event breathes to a finite
sense of conclusion that summarizes minutes, months, or even years of life,
death, and feelings of isolation. Photographing after an event is more
dramatic. It feels like the ending. Both subconsciously and consciously we feel
as thought we are being told the whole story. A photo taken during an event
only speaks to that instant. We can’t trust that the image is true. As we live
each day second to second, stimulus to stimulus, we rely on said conclusions to
fill us in on what we’ve missed out on. A photo taken after an event allows us
to feel this sense of nostalgia or loss that we aren’t necessarily entitled to.
Campany discusses this later in his passage with his idea of “mourning by
association” and how it becomes “an aestheticized response”. Although sentiment
is seldom unappreciated, this belief that we can make such conclusions based
off a photograph is facetious and sometimes offensive. The viewer of a
photograph fails to realize how much information is left behind when the scene
becomes encapsulated in photograph. The viewer, repelled by political
explanations, relies on this sense of ‘sublime’, as Campany describes, to
understand the photo as a whole. But as Campany also points out, there is a
“fine line between the banal and the sublime, and it is political. If an
experience of the contemporary sublime derives from our being in a world beyond
our comprehension, then it is a politically reified as much as an aesthetically
rarefied response”.
By: Morgan Kirol
2 comments:
This point of our obsessive picture-taking culture relates to points made by Wells in our textbook too. Today, any event we perceive as important, we photograph so we can immediately feel validated. This relates to the point brought up in the Wells chapter- that with the delete button so near right after we take a picture, it is easy for us to erase photos much earlier than history and nostalgia can really kick in. I just thought of that point because I liked the way you worded it- you said it gives us nostalgia we aren't really 'entitled' to yet. This speaks to our fast paced society- to the point that we think we feel emotions we might have not even 'earned' yet.
I agree with the point that sometimes viewing aftermath photos allows us to feel nostalgia that, as you quoted, "we aren't necessarily entitled to." Campany is not exactly discussing aftermath photos in a positive light, mentioning that no matter how Meyerowitz tried, his photos are not just banal and objective. His pieces are very formal and "beautiful," in a sense, swaying the reading of these images through a strong use of nostalgia that maybe never actually existed. This melancholy is contrived. For example, when I look at aftermath photos from 9/11 I immediately feel sadness and pain. But this pain isn't personal, it's national. Meyerowitz is giving me a nostalgia that I shouldn't necessarily have. I did not know any victims, and I was nowhere near the WTC when the attacks happened. I was a second grader and I barely remember the day. Photos keep these events alive and will continue to affect viewers who might not even have been born during the attacks, just like how our generation can look at WWI photos and feel and immense sense of loss even though our parents weren't even born. Aftermath photos are more psychological in their stillness rather than informational, which seems to be a contemporary theme that is very effective but not as objective as documentary photography might seem. Aside from photography, it is mind blowing to me that soon generations will appear that have to read about 9/11 in history books, just like we had to read about the Vietnam War. 9/11 will be a chapter to study for your history class.
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