Photographic and filmic images are very effective in what they do because they are meant to capture time. They are meant to make a memory last forever and are effective in doing so because they can visually be passed down from generation to generation in ways that simply telling a story cannot. They are also much more trustworthy than other mediums because they are instant and cannot be changed once taken.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The relationship between time and the photographic image
Photographic images contain the memory an event or moment that will forever be lost in time. While time keeps on moving and the world keeps on spinning, photographic images will stay with us forever. They are an accurate way of looking back in time and being able to see things that we may not have been alive to witness. Photographic images are able to break the barrier between the past and the present because they are able to take a person back and help them understand or look back on moments that are no longer. The image cannot do anything to time, but time can change the image or the viewer's perspective of the image. A photograph of old friends that was once much loved could suddenly become a bitter reminder of a lost friendship. But the photograph itself cannot do anything to time, only time itself can change the perspective on the image.
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Rikki, I like what you say about photographs being more trustworthy than other medium because they are instantaneous and cannot be modified, but do you think that that can provide a false sense of security? If one trusts an image only because of this, they are resigning the point that the photo may have been staged as trickery, etc..
ReplyDeleteI agree with nick. Photographs can be just as planned and staged as other mediums which creates a situation that might not be misleading. Even one that is taken on the fly cannot be fully trusted to show the whole perspective of a situation.
ReplyDeleteyou bring up a good point that the picture is able to bring you back in time to the moment in question but i would like to say that even if you see what is going on you cannot get the whole picture, you cannot see the emotion or the feeling unless the photographer had aimed for that to be the message.
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