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February 10, 2006
Some claim that you can look through photos at something else.
David Stephenson, Styx Valley, Tasmania, 2004, Type C colour photograph
That thesis presupposes that the photo is a window onto the landscape. Hardly. The photo is culturally encoded. How do we read the above: ecological vandalism or jobs for the timber industry? Do we think about saving the historic Recherche Bay from logging bythe timber giant Gunns Ltd.
David Stephenson, Mount Lyell I, Tasmania, 2005, Type C colour photograph
The photo as a window makes the camera a darkened room in which we reside or inhabit. Hardly. Well, it could mean that we are sitting in the dark opening our eyes to what the artist sees. If you open your eyes wide enough you can see what the photographer as an artist sees.
On another interpretatation we are sitting in our minds surrounded by objects--piles of Tasmania photographs as representations-- that can be used for increasing our awareness of the world; or articulating various kinds of narratives.
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