This is a photo I took of my sister Christine (we are twins—which explains the close resemblance to myself) and my father while visiting the city. Since my family does not have our own digital photag following us around capturing candid moments, many of the photos we have are posed. I enjoy pictures that are unexpected; however I do not enjoy feeling as if I am an “outsider,” by being the one taking the pictures. We frequent San Francisco quite often, so the sites we saw were nothing new to us. The costal wind was blowing as it usually is in San Francisco. I strategically placed Alcatraz in the background, yet I didn’t bother moving my family (minus a few members) around the pole: we were one of many families documenting our day by photo. Although I have had my digit camera for quite some time, I have yet to full understand the capabilities of the different settings. There is no viewfinder, only a two inch wide screen to take the picture, which I directly hold in front of me, only to check to see if the individuals are in the frame.
This was not the photo I intended on taking. The photo intent was quite posey. Yet this is not what I captured at all. During mid-pose, my sister and my dad react to a seagull that flew too close to them. Although I find the photo charming and quite hysterical, I took a series of photos, following this one, until I captured one that everyone was satisfied with. Although I took multiples photos, I kept this photo along with the “good” photo, so I could remember this moment as well.
A photo captures a single moment in time of the people in the photo and a portion of their surroundings. It does not capture what occurs before or after the photo is taken, nor does it capture what occurs outside of the photo. With the invention of digital photography, photos are instantly viewed, critiqued and discarded by the person taking them. This is a luxury we once did not have. Whether photos are posed, or are candid in nature, photos are kept because our satisfaction with them, because they successfully capture a part of our own history that we want to remember—even if we are not in the photo.
This was not the photo I intended on taking. The photo intent was quite posey. Yet this is not what I captured at all. During mid-pose, my sister and my dad react to a seagull that flew too close to them. Although I find the photo charming and quite hysterical, I took a series of photos, following this one, until I captured one that everyone was satisfied with. Although I took multiples photos, I kept this photo along with the “good” photo, so I could remember this moment as well.
A photo captures a single moment in time of the people in the photo and a portion of their surroundings. It does not capture what occurs before or after the photo is taken, nor does it capture what occurs outside of the photo. With the invention of digital photography, photos are instantly viewed, critiqued and discarded by the person taking them. This is a luxury we once did not have. Whether photos are posed, or are candid in nature, photos are kept because our satisfaction with them, because they successfully capture a part of our own history that we want to remember—even if we are not in the photo.
2 comments:
Candid photos indeed capture the "moment" rather than being something superficial and set up. And photography where you have to look through a lens rather than a viewfinder allows you to visualize things through the perspective of the camera. Leaving out the peripherals of the outside world and things going on around you. And it's funny how your sister looks terrified while your dad seems amused and just points.
And maybe it's syntax but I don't understand this sentence? "I enjoy pictures that are unexpected; however I do not enjoy feeling as if an “outsider,” by being the one taking the pictures." Did you mean you do not enjoy feeling like an outsider?
I like how you chose a disturbed image-one that you didn't 'intend', as you say. I wonder, though, about this idea that we can instantly discard pictures we don't like. Do you think this has affected how we take pictures? When one only had 24 shots on a roll, one tended to be meticulous and scrupulous when taking a picture. Now, as you show, you can click off a hundred pictures and simple discard the ones that you don't like. Does this change our relationships to images? And how does this affect writing? Because we can go back and 'edit' our posts so easily, does it make us write sloppier prose? You've raised a lot of implicit issues about digital reproduction and our relationships to image/text.
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