Thoughts Out Of Season – “Photograph Is Pure Contingency” -Roland Barthes

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I’m having a hard time finding photography quotes to post that I actually agree with. Most are true bullshit, like this one:

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” -Ansel Adams

Now here’s another quote with a different perspective:

“The photograph is pure contingency, and it can be nothing else.” -Roland Barthes

Which statement is actually grounded in reality? The Barthes quote. A photograph is a capture, a chemical reaction to reflected light. There is no mystical woo-woo that can get around this objective fact of reality. The only thing that can be done after a capture, is adjustments in the darkroom or Photoshop – but, this is manipulation, NOT re-creation. This places photography in the craft department rather than the fine arts. Digital photography almost falls below craft and into the video game department. That’s it! A digital camera is a portable video game for adults with expendable income! It temporally fulfills one’s desire for instant gratification.

One of the leading drives to elevate photography to a fine art, rather than a craft, was not solid philosophic theory, but rather financial considerations (and, people like to think that they are all fine artists). You get more money if people think photography is fine art.

Think about it: An issue of Life Magazine (which was intended to inform and educate) was only a few dollars, yet it contained photographs by great photographers such as Eugene Smith. Put the same photo on a wall in a “fine art” gallery, and the photo fetches an outstanding sum of money.

Why is this important? It’s important because there are blank canvases hanging on the wall at the Chicago Art Institute! There are carpet scraps thrown on the floor being displayed as an actual “fine-art” exhibit! It is an insult to humanity to place such junk in an art museum (at least they had the good sense to put photography down in the basement).

Fine art is a reflection of a culture’s internal condition. When I see what they have cluttering the modern wing, I see a spiritually exhausted culture. That’s what the philosophy of Relativism brings with it – mass mediocrity posing as greatness.

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