Exercise: Quotes by Andre Bazin and Allan Sekula

The Myth of Objectivity.

Write a reflective commentary on the following quotes ...

BAZIN

.... for the first time, between the originating object and its reproduction there intervenes only
instrumentality of a non living agent.  For the first time an image of the world is formed
automatically, without the creative intervention of man.  In spite of any objections our critical
spirit may offer, we are forced to accept as real the existence of the object reproduced,
actually, represented.

SEKULA

.... if we accept the fundamental premise that information is the outcome of a culturally
determined relationship, then we can no longer ascribe an intrinsic or universal meaning
to the photographic image.


Bazin before his death began to write a four volume review on cinema.  He discussed photography
as embalming the dead, preserving flesh and bone and a photograph satisfy's a mans needs
to have the last word ..  it was quite a vain thing to have you portrait painted, but it kept your
image alive for future generations.  It was a decisive moment when the camera was invented
It satisfied our obsession with realism.  However he says that the photographers personality
enters the proceedings although it does not effect the photo in the same way that it does with an
artist and his painting.

Painting is an inferior way of making a likeness - the photographic image is the object itself.

Sekula says that a photograph comes with a message, it has context and meaning, and is subject to cultural definition.  A photograph communicates with a hidden text, you need to learn to read the glossy paper - photographic 'literacy' is learned.  A photo has a language beyond speech.

The photo is seen as a representation of nature itself as an unmeditated copy of the real world.  The medium itself is considered transparent.  The propositions carried through the medium are unbiased and therefore true.

Any given photo is conceivably open to appropriation by a range of texts.

Bazin talks more about the replacement of painted portraits with that of photography and that the image that is produced is an exact reproduction of an object.  Sekula is more about how a picture tells a story and that there is more to a picture than just a reproduced image.  Both are true and there is a place for both.  But sometimes a picture can be taken purely for pleasure or a portrait when no story is needed, although I suppose you could argue that a portrait still is telling the story of the person. The debate goes on and on.