Week 5 Reading: Photography

As discussed by Barthes (1982) early photography was difficult for people to comprehend  as the source of the and the fact that it could be repeated confused society. This then caused many authenticity debates because prior to photography the main form of capturing an image was painting, which saw a person physically replicating an image. Thus unlike the process of painting whereby there is a physical process, photography produced only an output, baffling society.

Overtime this confusing developed into a greater complication. While photography shows what is certain, is a picture of something really that thing? Take Surrealist artist René Magritte’s (1928) painting of a pipe for instance. Is it truely a pipe or is it merely a painting of a pipe? Of course it is a painting, yet the meaning in Magritte’s work can be applied to photography. When we take a photo of an object, person or environment there is always going to be a conflict of experience verses image. For example, is there a difference between going to see the Eiffel Tower in real life compared to seeing an image? Realistically it depends on the object, person or environment itself however the idea raises valuable questions about authenticity and photography.

Regardless of your position on the subject it is evident that photographs can still portray a high level of meaning. Bathes (1982) highlights that often people can find it difficult to recognise the meaning of photographs and while there is no physical thing there is a narrative to the image. Bathes (1982) also recognises that amateur photography is seeing the image but not the meaning as he illuminates in the words “a photograph is always invisible; it is not what we see” (p.g 6).

By Chelsea Buswell.

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