Chapter 9: The Photograph as Fine Art

When photography is a fine art, we see it with more of the lines, texture, form of the photograph. Some nude photographs are seen not with the individual but with the way the photographer captured the lines, texture, and the form of the object. People, history, or places are not what is important in this kind of photography, but the picture itself. When the reader looks at the photograph, it looks for a message or text, but can only see the beauty in the picture not really much more. They get lost in the dark negative space and such.

Chapter 8: Documentary Photography

Taken in the twentieth century, photographs taken for the soul purpose of "remembering" what happened during these times. Some may say that this is the most intimate form of photography. There is a great bond between the on-looker or reader of the photograph and what the photograph is saying, or showing. These may be scenes from disasters or wars, people helping or a political campaign. I like the photograph called Sharecropper's Home because it shows us how the sharecroppers lived.The news papers on the walls as their wall paper. It is very similar to Interior of a Black Farmers House that was taken around the same time. The older furniture and the clippings on the walls from newspapers, show us how they lived and what they went through. The photo of the migrant mother crys out, "Sympathy" to the reader as if to say, "Feel sorry for me" the photograph speaks so loud that anyone who looks at it would feel this way. These people are dressed in what they have and are about to begin a new life away from eveything they know.

Chapter 7: The Body in Photography

Oh boy! Camaras love the body. The body is something that shows who the person is, kind of. The body can be mysterious. When a photograph is taken of the body it is usually because of the lines the body creates, not becauses there are perverted people who just want to look. It is telling a story. The lines of the body are curvy and are nice for the eyes to look at. Photographs of the body can be kind of graphic, but when looked at close can really tell a story. The photos of the backside show a sort of innosence. The person in the photo does not want to be seen front on, and it shows a sense of shyness.

Chapter 6: The Portrait in Photography

I love Mapplethorpe's photograph of Apollo's sculpture. I think it captures a lot. I think it almost looks as if it were a real person. You can hardly tell it is a sculpture if you were to just glance at it. The book says that portrait photography should include aesthetic interactions, cultural interactions, ideological interactions, and sociological and psychological interactions. You can tell a lot by a portrait photograph by where the person is looking. Some people when beging photographed look away as seeming to say, "Look at me, I will not look back." while others gaze back and say, "I dare you." or "What's up!" Just like pictures that are taken today. Portraits have been taken throughout the years of famous people, infamous people, and everything in between.

Chapter 5: The City in Photography

Being brought up in a time where cities were also becomming popular, photography has a lot in common with the city. Like landscape photography, a photograph taken in a certain spot will look different through the lens of a photographer taking the same picture 20 years later. Panoramic photos are photos taking in sequence and put together to make a large, wide photograph. There are panoramic photos taken of the largest cities, London, New York and Paris from the 1790s because that is where the life was. The picture Steiglitz took of the flatiron building was a very neat one. The lines and everything work really well. This is an example of photographers taking pictures of America growing up. They saw the beauty in new things and the shiny snow that Steiglitz saw on this foggy morning reminded him of that. Some photographers took pictures of buildings and monuments, others stuck with the people of the city and the city life, and others took photographs of the events that took place in the large cities. I think that the photograph taking by Weegee, Murder in Hell's Kitchen is interesting because there is a bird in the front of the photograph. Kind of representing that maybe somebody saw the murder. Why didn't Weegee run away, why is he taking pictures?

Chapter 4: Landscape in Photography

Landscape in photography is usually seen and beautiful and valuable. Photography has a notion of being "picturesque" as the book calls it and that means that it is "timeless" and nothing else can be like it. A landscape photograph from back in the 1800s probably looks a lot different if the same photograph from the same angle would be taken today. A man named Fenton, takes photographs that are relaxing to the viewer. There is not work shown in any of his photographs and everyone looks easy going and happy. He takes more photographs of what we wish the world was like all the time. I really like the photograph on page 59 of the wagon and horses and O'Sullivan's footprints in the desert sand leading up to where he is taking the photograph. The desert is something that will not only change in a few years, but in a few minutes or even seconds with wind changing the footprints into flat, level sand. In the photograph of the "Grand Canyon of the Colorado" is cool because they use a lot of cloud space to highlight the beauty and the bigness of the canyon.

The Photograph: Photography and the Nineteenth Century

In the Nineteenth Century people began taking photographs that looked like paintings. The Nineteenth Century was obsessed with things. The whole chapter has pictures of things, not many people. The pictures of people are very rare and it makes it obvious that this Century was obsessed with things. They were interesting in not just personal things, but historical things as well, things that would help us remember the past. This chapter basically says over and over that the Nineteenth Century was a very item-obsessed time period.

The Photograph: How Do We Read A Photograph?

The book tells us that people go further from looking at a photograph and read it as if it were a text. In some pictures the reader cannot really know what the photographer was thinking or seeing during the time of the picture. The photograph only captures a moment in time and only a specific event. No one could know what was truly going on around the photograph, even if the photographer tells them. Who's to say the photographer is telling what really happened? A photograph has the ability to tell as story, that is why we read them as if they were texts. The person reading the photograph must look at the expression of the person or thing that may be in the photograph. Arbus's photograph of the twin girls shows their different expressions. One girl seems to be the happier twin while the other ones seems to be more passive. A true critique would look at their hands and how one is open and one is closed and other details like that. They also look at how it relates to the real world. Reading a photograph takes a lot of time and attention to detail.

The Photograph: What is a photograph?

The entire chapter is telling what a photograph is and where they come from. In the very first paragraph of the book, they talk about how we carry photographs with us everywhere. We use them for everything as well. Photograph means "light writing". This means that that something created by/in light. Photographs make time stand still. It is a way of remembering good or bad. The modern photograph with negatives and postitives and such was founded by a man named William Henry Fox. I like Walter Benjamin's suggestion for a photograph. A work of art based on "chemical and industrial prossess of production." I also like how the book takes apart different views of photography, they call them 'art photography' and 'documentary photography'. Photography was considered a 'fine art' in 1853 in London. A photograph is simply the creativity of the photographer. Anyone can push a button, but it takes a true artist to pust the button at the right time and capture something breathtaking.