What Does Photography Mean to Me?

  "The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph, it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth." If the statement is saying that before a photo is taken, the emotion that is happening before it will not always be replicated with the same emotion before the picture was taken, I would have to say I agree. Any emotion or feeling that is seen before a moment is capture will not look the same to the person that has taken the photograph to someone looking at the photograph. The interpretation of a photo can easily be changed in anyones eyes and tell them something different about what is happening in the photo. Everything someone says about a photograph they are looking at automatically becomes an opinion. A photo reprints pieces of reality, and people are really just commenting on what they see based on the reality they are livi...

  “Because  each photograph is only a fragment, its moral and emotional weight depends on where it is inserted. A photograph changes according to the context in which it is seen: thus ...  photographs will seem different on a contact sheet, in a gallery, in a political demonstration, in a police file, in a photographic magazine, in a book, on a living-room wall. Each  of  these situations suggest a different use for the photographs but none can secure their meaning .”  -  Susan Sontag , On Photography by Susan Sontag , ISBN: 0385267061 , Page: 10 Photography has the power to express so many different types of emotions. So many things can be communicated through images and send different messages to each person that looks at photos. The fact that photographs can be edited like the one above also goes to show the impact on editing a photo can have. A basic picture of president Obama was turned into a beacon of hope. So much can w...

" Photographs, which fiddle with the scale of the world, themselves get reduced, blown up, cropped, retouched, doctored, tricked out. They age, plagued by the usual ills of paper objects; they disappear; they become valuable, and get bought and sold; they are reproduced. Photographs, which package the world, seem to invite packaging. They are stuck in albums, framed and set on tables, tacked on walls, projected as slides. Newspapers and magazines feature them; cops alphabetize them; museums exhibit them; publishers compile them" pg 2 Photos can last a long time or can be very short lived. I never really thought about how much photographs go through so much within time. The fact the photographs can age faster than humans and easily die out as in disappear or get lost just like humans is crazy. So many things can happen with photos that are printed, but as society has advanced photos are never really lost now or just old and fragile but tucked somewhere in a file. As stated in ...

  Looking back at the Still Life assignment sheet, Chema Madoz image was the one that stood out to me. I really love this picture because I would of never though of putting plates in between the sewage floor. It's like such a creative way of maying a still life picture and is very unique to me. Madoz is known for his surrealist and poetic photographs. Looking over some of his images they look really architectural and has a lot of structure to it. In some of the images I see, instead of taking pictures with people it is mainly of objects. But these look like two objects that were created together. I am curious on how that is possible and yet he could of made the image in the most simplest way. 

  This image right here I really love and I'm actually curious on how it was made. It looks very 3D as if some of his face is popping out of the screen. As I was doing my research I realized that he has so many different types of photography styles such as: symmetry, cropping, use of negative space, violation of rule of thirds, the use of corners, and etc. So cut outs I can say is my favorite of all his works.  The fact that he didn't limit his work to one type of style and had so many options to work with, I like. Normally artist stick to one style and there is nothing wring with that but sometimes we want to see something new that they can give us.  Looking through his "environmental portraiture" he really captures the essence of the person and the work that they do. Also, looking at the other portraits he has done, he really makes them look superior and I like that because its there image and there time to shine. 

               Ralph Gibson is an American photographer that is known for his photographic books and working in black-and-white images. As I read up on him I am seeing people refer to his images as having "erotic subject matter"and "mysterious" but I don't see it. In his images I don't see anything compared to Micheal Keena. Keena really displayed that mysterious look in his photographs by it looking sharp and coming in from all angels.  His main focus in his work is to communicate "contextualization" and "surreal juxtaposition." I actually think surrealism is kind of cool. I specially like it in drawings and painting but I question how people are able to do in photographs. I don't like surrealism as much in photographs as in drawings but it still looks somewhat cool to see what people are able to accomplish with people or objects they use. 

 Micheal Keena is best known for working in black and white photography. He is very famous for his unusual photographs of landscapes and actually has a lot of work in museums. Keena also is known for taking his photographs at dawn or night, using more then 10 hours of exposure to get his photographs how he wants it to look. He even has a significant amount of books written about him and his work because of his photographs interaction with nature.  Surprisingly I really love his work. It all looks so sharp with a lot of symmetry, lines, and much more. Most of his images I am really curious how he was able to take it because of the different angles and heights of the subject of the photo. He believed that photographing in black and white would make his images mysterious and I completely agree, it gives off the vibes of something smooth yet scary to come.  I noticed that Keena doesn't photograph people and that is interesting. his main goal is to create calm, sooth...