Reality thought Photography

From the beginning of our society humans have the necessity to register everything we do and believe. I strongly believe that we as a race have this necessity to immortalize and be remember for the next generations. We can see this in different manifestations cultures, like poems and songs. Likewise, this is observed in the invention of photography, since it is the one that allows us to freeze time and moments. In this way photography has been on charge of contributing to our collective memory by immortalize the past. However, with the advancement of time and technology, we ask ourselves how real are the images that we are consuming?

As it is well known, art has been seen as a medium to represent and immortalised reality. We can perceive this since the begging of our society, in prehistoric art, where they drew human and animals’ figure in action as close as reality as the could, allowing us to get a notion of their lifestyle, tools and weapons. Also, we can find other illustrations in bronze age societies like Egyptian, were walls and pottery where decorated with the most important occasions, in these depictions we can see an effort to capture all the portions and forms of the human body (La Volpe, 2017).

As the time go by, techniques and materials improve, and art started to fulfill and important roll in science, by allowing to know the organs. Physicians like Andreas Vesalius studied human anatomy by drew his autopsies, which inspired others into figurative art, like Leonardo Davinci. A long this way, paintings stated to be a political and economical statement, due to was the closed to reality. Later on, with the invention and popularity of the daguerreotype, art takeoff the experimentation with color and shape, while photography took over reality representation. This originated movements like: Expressionism, Art Nouveau, Dadaism, Cubism and Abstract Expressionism (La Volpe, 2017)

As the time goes by, photography stated to improve their methods, resulting in sharper images and simpler process. However, it was not recognized as art due to was not seen a medium of expression, until artist stated to used as a tool and stated to play with it. This was the way that many photographers stated their career, by experimenting and pushing boundaries. So, photography begins to navigates in different fields and way of expression, from Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus, to Man Ray.

Personally, when I see all this history makes me wonder about photography as a reflection of reality and the use of editing tools like Photoshop. Because I found during the semester, I found people that has different opinions about this matter. Besides, If I am honest, I do not consider this a small discussion, I consider it to be a discussion that is getting bigger and more fundamental.

Photographs can be just as useful as maps and clocks. “The more people consulted those maps, the more they trained their minds to understand reality based on them and their language” (Carr, 2011, p. 58). The photographs allow us to see a part of a reality, although it is not objective, since, a photograph is subject to the photographer's frame. Not only that, as long explore you go deep in the cinematic language you can realize that even such minimal changes of angles can change the perception of the subject towards the reality that is being presented to him. In addition thanks to the understanding of technical aspects such as depth of field, shutter speed, rule of thirds, among others. It can be understood that we can manipulate everything in order to obtain a certain result.

For example, in cases such as photojournalist such as Sebastiado Salgado, Greg Marinovich and Jesús Abad Colorado did not consider that they believe disents only because they were at the right time and the right place, I consider that their images are intended for the purpose of conveying an idea or the point of view of a story. Personally, I think that's what we do as photographers, telling stories from the little pieces of reality that we get to capture on our sensor.

One of the first obstacles I have encountered in the photography program is to find people who condemn and almost devalue the use of Photoshop a tool for creative exploration. They have the idea that if you leave the camera without the need for pre-production it is because it is raw and real, and all your talents will show off. I do not disagree with the fact what makes you a great photographer is having control over your setting and have great raw file to work with, but I think that photographers Ron Clifford show us how some times mistakes can be more accretive. Clifford’s mindset reminds me something that I think is really important to keep in mind when we are creating, and is the fact that we can create from our failures and that this is the time to do that because we are learning and we are getting out our comfort zone. And probably we are confrontable and doing everything in the in the right way, is when we are going to miss this time when we felt that everything was going downhill, because that where we were more creatives.

I think that Jorge Luis Borges illustrated this perfectly in 1983 at the Collège de France:

In this art we find at first sight that perhaps misfortune is richer than happiness, defeat is richer than victory. The defeat can make us think, while the interjections are mixed in victory, vanity: then misfortune is better. Certainly, we all have our share of happiness and misfortune: but happiness is an end in itself and demands nothing while misfortune must be transformed into something else. That is, misfortune would be the subject of art, or also nostalgia, nostalgia is linked to a lost happiness, a lost paradise (Borges,1983)

I strongly believe that editing tools allow us to play more with our creativity. Authors like Nicholas Carr, tells us that when we are creating, we can see ourselves reflected, above all we can see our desire for power and control over our environment. As it is mentioned before photography is seen as a tool to demonstrate reality or aspects of reality within a social group. But currently the technology allows us to go beyond the creative limits of what we want to express, and create worlds beyond imagination like Rosie Artist, Herri Susanto or Amelie Satzger. For that reason, the photoshop and photography have created a relationship whereby many photographers see photoshop as something usual and in some cases necessary to be able to express their ideas. Joan Vendrell express it very well:

Photoshop offers you the creative freedom you need ahead, don't set limits and let others say what they want. To what extent do we have to retouch the photos? There is no limit, basically because nobody knows what technology will bring us in a few years, but I'm sure it will allow us to do incredible things that we cannot even imagine (David, n.d).

This means that the photoshop allows photographers to reach and surpass the limits of their creativity and create new ways of expressing reality, but without losing sight of what you are trying to express and without losing or altering the truth of what is happening. Because the use of the erroneous without criteria and excessive photoshop can come to alter, confuse and make an erroneous opinion on what the photographer wants to demonstrate and on the situation that this photograph captures because this represents the specific moments and is immovable.

This is reflected in the silver by the photographer Joan Vendrell, who says "We must encourage creative freedom, above all fashions, styles, and prejudices. We must embark on artistic experimentation and be brave enough to innovate photographically. I believe that we are already sufficiently linked to styles and opinions about what is "possible or not", we must break ties and let ourselves be carried away by what each one considers." (David, n.d)

Also, the photoshop is used to correct errors or give a final touch. And this is not something new, due to photographers have been doing since the benign during the process of developing or in the accommodation of the elements so that the photo represented what he wanted.

I feel that overall all the speakers try to leave this that, that we have to have this urge to experimented to be more successful in the field. That we should not conform with what we have been told, on the contrary we need to get ourselves out there and explore new markets (like Patrick Moher or Shihn and Steven), meet new people and build great relationships with them (like Nicole Aubrey).

In conclusion, the photoshop gives the photographer more freedom to express himself and create surrealistic environments, and that reflect different aspects of reality without losing the original photograph and the meaning or memories. We can see that in the professional wold the use of photoshop must be made with criteria and responsibility so as not to alter other aspects of the image because photography is considered a means of communication and this makes opinions or changes them.

References:

(2011). The tools of the mind. In N. Carr, Surfaces (pp. 56-77).

David (n.d) Arcadina Blog. Natural Photography or Photoshop? 7 great photographers talk about it. Recovered from: https://blog.arcadina.com/fotografia-natural-o-photoshop-7-grandes-fotografos-hablan-sobre-el-tema/

Aumont, J. (2005). The film as visual and sound representation. In A. B. Jacques Aumont, Aesthetics of Cinema: Filmic Space, Editing, Narration, Language (pp. 19-49). Paidos Iberica editions.