Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Relationship Between Photography and Time
Time and the photographic image have an interesting relationship. While the photographic image is an excellent recorder of a certain moment, it leaves out very much and is in fact misleading in what it does capture. For instance, the photograph leaves out all senses accept for sight it its approximation of a moment. This is an injustice to the moment, because just then there could have been a singer behind the camera sweetening the air. Or, somebody trying to trick the viewer could be holding the subject of the photo at gunpoint, and unfortunately, they are just outside the frame. The photograph, essentially, cannot properly display time. There is no movement in a picture, and one can only see what is presented to them. Unfortunately, this is a common misapprehension. Far too many people rely on still photography for the truth about a time. This division of truth and time has been lessened by the video camera and filmic recordings, but thanks to modern technology, a still photograph is often times more trustworthy.
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So are you saying that the camera lacks a feeling of emotion and specific detail? I do agree that the camera although showing a scene does lack a certain, I don't want to sound spiritual, but aura per se that one can only feel while personally experiencing something.
ReplyDeletePersonally I feel that the advent of video technology has in fact added to the illusion of the truthfulness, because cameras and camcorders alike only record the movement of light and not of matter.
ReplyDeleteDo you consider movement critical in conveying time or emotion in a photographic? I think a single image, like a portrait, can caption a persons personality or mood without movement. You what they say "a pictures worth a thousand words."
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that movement is necessary to truthfully convey time and emotion. While I agree that to truly experience a moment you need to be there and witness it for yourself, a photograph or image is still able to capture certain emotion and convey it to the world without using movement or personal experience
ReplyDeleteCan you convey motion with multiple images then? Is there a set number of still that can come together as in old-school animation? What if we consider that motion is also an illusion a la Einstein? In which case the assertion would be irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. a photograph can only show an image, a single instant, less then a second. A video on the other hand can show audio and motion. This is still imperfect because you cannot touch what is in the video. Unless we find a way to project every sense of a scene into the brain there will never be a way to completely savor a moment in time
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