AMP

New Year's Eve, 2007

Over the holiday break I went back home to my friends and family in Minneapolis. I’m not sure if it was the holiday spirit or what, but man, we went out A LOT. Like every night. The holiday break also coincided with me purchasing my first digital point-and-shoot, which has become pretty important to my photographic process. For years I would just shoot my old Olympus Stylus point-and-shoot on Tri-X or Astia. So suddenly, photography is back into my life–and in a big way. This makes me re-think some of my earlier thoughts on photography and it’s relationship to the way we experience the world. In the past I’ve argued that it can cause quite an interruption, but I’m ready to argue the other side now.

Photography Studio ~ 1890's

Let me explain. I believe that in photography’s early days (mid 1800’s up until the end of the century), the process of photography was the same as the experience. Many people were photographed just for the experience of being photographed. Thus, I would argue that the interruption of experience through photography was minimal–in most cases the interruption was THE experience. (Terrible Contemporary Analogy = Television is our everyday life experience, and commercials are photography. What I’m saying is that upon the invention/discovery of commercials, people wanted to watch to the commercials just to see what they were like–to experience the watching of a commercial. Only after their newness wore off did commercials become an interruption).

Walker Evans, Subway Passengers, 1938

However, as photography became more and more integrated into modern life, it became more and more of an interruptive pause in experience. Hardly can a family have a group outing without the breaks of posing for the snapshot.

However, my experience with a particular cultural subset (call them Generation Y, Hipsters, or anyone born after 1980) leads me to believe that there is a new contemporary experience of photography that does not treat the technology as an interruption, but rather as a supplement to the experience.

Nan Goldin, Rise and Monty on the lounge chair, NYC, 1988

I believe that this cultural and photographic trend can be traced back to a genre of street photography–’shooting from the hip’. Photography is at it’s most disruptive when your vision is physically interrupted by the camera. A foreign object is placed between you and one of your sensory organs. However, when held to the side, or really anywhere other then in front of your eyes, it simply becomes a supplement–not a replacement.

Lee Friedlander, New York City, 1966

At parties and clubs, I now see cameras and phones being punched upward, attempting to capture a scene that the photographer is unable to see with their own eyes. Due to the fast feedback loop of digital cameras, the rising popularity of DIY documentation, and the omnipresence of cameras, this has quickly become a common sight.

Ryan McGinley, Morrissey 3, 2004

This use of the camera also serves as a supplemental documentation to what may otherwise be a foggy recollection. In fact, if one’s brain-memory fails (which happens more than we’d like it to), the camera-memory can actually supplant itself in the brain memory and serve as THE representation of the original experience.

Underwear Party, 2008

I’m still undecided if this is a good or bad trend. I’m not one to propagate the myth of an ‘original experience’, but I’m also hesitant to trust our memories to consumer electronics.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 9:29 pm and is filed under Photography, Reality, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.