Pictorialism, with a small “p” always has been an essential element in the best photographs throughout the medium’s history. And it is still true. It acknowledges that photography is a PICTURE-making process. Pictures are very good at emphasizing feeling; they are very bad at conveying ideas. Ideas need words. If the words or ideas already exist,
... See moreBill Jay • LensWork #83 (The Bill Jay's Best of EndNotes issue)
One of the things we neglect to talk about enough is the fact that a photograph is a made object. Everything about it is a construct, from the organic chemistry in the emulsion on a piece of film to sensor resolution, to the limits of focal length, aperture and shutter speed. The dark room and the computer are places where we refine the early
... See moreToo often, we think of notebooks as a way-station: a necessary stop en-route to the perfected, polished work of art. But what if the notebook is the work of art? What if the process of taking notes is the point?
It is an appearance, or a set of appearances, which has been detached from the place and time in which it first made its appearance and preserved – for a few moments or a few centuries. Every image embodies a way of seeing. Even a photograph. For photographs are not, as is often assumed, a mechanical record. Every time we look at a photograph, we
... See moreJohn Berger • Ways of Seeing
A camera for ideas · July 2022
A revolutionary new kind of camera was recently invented. Instead of turning light into pictures, it turns ideas into pictures.
The traditional camera replicates what your eyes do. It works by receiving millions of photons onto a light-sensitive material,... See more