some photography theory

photography on

   Imagine a world without photography... The answer is you can't, not any more at least. As the world is at the beginning and well into the digital age we produce more photographs then ever before. Every day we are bombarded by photographic images so much so that the average Internet user can view hundreds of pictures a day. And so photographs influence our modern lives, our way of perceiving the world is forever altered by photographs.

Some even say that because of the huge quantity of photographs we make and consume every day photography has lost it's magic. Could this be so ? Should photographers despair ? Should photographers adapt? Should photographers react? Is photography over?

The truth is that photography is often misunderstood as it is half reality and half fiction, a photograph looks to be from the real world yet the real world does not look like a photograph, and so people truly don't know what to make of it. In my perspective this is a good thing, for as long as photography is misunderstood we, as fine art photographers, have the freedom to do what ever we wish with it.

And so photography is not over because of the overwhelming number of pictures that exist in the world, photography may be at it's best time yet, I believe it's a wonderful time for photography and their is still much that photography can teach us.
       
I chose to write this text to make my point clear as I noticed a lot of confusion in the photography world lately and even in our discussions at "art talks Flacara".

My opinions are opened to debate in the comment section below.

text by Ovidiu Gordan

Some current art debates which include photography:

Saatchi Gallery Talk : New Directions in Contemporary Photography - link

Museums are bad at telling us why art matters - link

Photography and the Art World - link

Playing the Field: Photography and Collecting Today - link


A must read text about photography:

Matthew Thompson - The Object Lost and Found - link