Visual Culture by Howells and Negreiros Chapter 8: Photography

Chapter commences with history of photography as a confluence of physics and chemistry (the light capturing properties of silver being paramount) and the conflicting claims of Daguerre and Fox Talbot to be the 'inventor' of the medium.

Perhaps the seminal invention was the Kodak camera of George Eastmann in 1888, as that both democratised photography  by making it cheaper and commoditised by making it transportable and accessible (witness Stieglitz's image The Steerage, 1907).

Photography meant people could be seen as they actually appear, and places as they actually are. Photography could record events, such as Fenton at Crimea. Could be used as a force to highlight social conditions too. Photography was reality in many people's eyes; the mechanical authenticity of the medium does in some people's eyes mitigate against it as an art form. The photograph simply reports what it sees, which can be dramatic as in Sphere's image of the Hindenburg explosion, but that is not art. It is a picture of something.

This is argument of Scruton: "if one finds a photograph beautiful, it is because one finds something beautiful in its subject". The argument is flawed because the photographer has to make a number of technical and creative choices.

Scruton may have more of a point with documentary photography but even then the photographer will seek to show a subject literally in the best light, when, for example, photographing houses for sale. Even the initial decision that something is worth documenting is a subjective one. The subjects for the images from the famous FSA series (includung Lange's image Migrant Mother) of 1930s were all carefully selected to show the photographer's own notions of poverty and exploitation.

Bazin was interested in the relationsgip between the photograph and reality. He recognized that 'the photographic image is the object itself' but 'freed from the conditions of time and space that govern it.' He even claims that photography can surpass in creative power because 'the logical distinction between what is imaginary and what is real tends to disappear.'

Photography is a visual medium with a dual nature - neither wholly real nor wholly imaginery. This may be viewed as a weakness or a strength. To H&N, we are stimulated by the hallucination and the fact at the same time. 

Additional debate looks further at Scruton's point that photography cannot be regarded as art as it is intrinsically unable to transcend its subject-matter.

King points out this can be true only if we view a photograph purely for its subject matter. But if we are attracted by the how (the photograph's 'manner of representation') it is a result of the photographer's intention and therefore represents more than the subject-matter.

King identified five reasons why people view photographs:

subject

evocative power (holiday snaps, for example)

technical aspects

formal appearance

interest in the manner of representation expressing the photographer's 'way of seeing'

Only the fifth particularly refutes Scruton.

Two additional points come to my mind that are not covered by H&N:

The flip side of refuting Scruton by saying that photographs can be art because they have a 'manner of representation' is that the vast majority of photographs are not art. They are 'record shots'; the problem can then be discerning which is which. Intention may not be enough; you cannot say that just because a photograph is intended to be 'artistic' that by virtue that intention alone it is. Conversely someone might see artistic expression in a photograph where none was intended, I often wonder if this is true of much early photography. We now imbue images with artistic quality because we wish to emphasize the art in photography. Fenton's image comes to mind.

Secondly, the article implicitly assumes we are looking at a single photograph whereas much contemporary art photography is comprised of several images - story telling. This is possibly a reaction to the Scruton criticism or in a more mundane sense,  that it is relatively easy to take many images of a subject or related subjects in order to represent an intention.