Thursday, February 28, 2008

Photography: What about it?

What are your thoughts about photographs? How have they changed life, or how has life changed them?
At your house, what's the difference between the oldest photos you own and the newest?
What are photos good for? Bad for?

Daguerreotypes
"Welcome to the Mirror Image Gallery, the place on internet for all interested in photos and history."

I like that the description said "photos and history," because photos become history. The buildings and cars behind people in documentaries become records. The surroundings of movies shot on location become history. New Orleans shows in Easy Rider is a distorted but 1960s way, and in A Love Song for Bobby Long, one neighborhood is shown in a very casual, leisurely way. It might not be there anymore, but with the passage of time it wouldn't be there any more in the way it was during the filming anyway.

"Is it a picture or a painting?" "There is recent speculation that 17th century artist Johannes Vermeer used a precurser to the camera, the Camera Obscura, to create his incredibly detailed paintings. The result is an interesting blurring between artistic and scientific mediums...." (blog post with responses and many links)

Mirrors in images, and mirror images

Miraculous Photographs

3 comments:

Sally said...

Here are some more
incredible photographs that I found linked from Orson Scott Card's weekly article Uncle Orson Reviews Everything.

Those "Miraculous Photographs" gave me the heebie-jeebies. Still, they got me thinking about whether it's possible to photograph something that may only be visible to some people. Do photographs "prove" what's real and what's not? Are spirits not real unless they can be photographed? Hmm.

Sally

Rinnyboo said...

My husband and I got married in Scotland and we spent part of the next day at the Camera Obscura in Edinburgh. It was incredible to see a panoramic view of the city thru the lens.

Ever since I saw the movie "Girl with a Pearl Earring" I have wanted to make my own camera obscura. That is a project for a day other than today (my son's birthday)!

Marin

~Katherine said...

Quote from your blog: "Is it a picture or a painting?" "There is recent speculation that 17th century artist Johannes Vermeer used a precurser to the camera, the Camera Obscura, to create his incredibly detailed paintings. The result is an interesting blurring between artistic and scientific mediums...." (blog post with responses and many links)

My Comment: There's one name I'd like to mention that is also a speculation like that: Leonardo da Vinci. He came later but same kind of thing.