Thought-Factory.net Philosophical Conversations Public Opinion philosophy.com Junk for code
PortElliot2.jpg
'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'
RECENT ENTRIES
SEARCH
ARCHIVES
Weblog Links
Library
Fields
Philosophers
Writers
Connections
Magazines
E-Resources
Academics
Other
www.thought-factory.net
'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

photography: a note on analytic aesthetics « Previous | |Next »
June 15, 2009

A central claim in analytic aesthetics is that photography is or might become an art has been resisted for generations on the ground that photographs are essentially mechanical products, whereas artistic representations in forms of which painting is the paradigm engage the essentially free and imaginative human creator. Some critics have regarded photographers as mere technicians who assist an automatic process where nature 'draws its own image' upon a light sensitive form. Photographers are akin to organ grinders who simply press buttons to run musical mechanisms. Organ grinders are not considered to be musicians.

Digital photography undercuts that argument. Artists have taken advantage of developments in digital technology to produce large-scale colour images that often resemble or allude to painting. Such photography is considered to be a pictorial arts such as painting (style, expression, originality, depiction, intention, and the like) and that pictorial photography as largely continuous with the conventions of figurative painting. If photography has become trendier than painting, then digital-imaging techniques undermine the confidence in the objectivity (mechanical nature) of the image-forming process.

Recently it has been argued by analytic aestheticians (Roger Scruton in "Photography and Representation") that photographs are not even representations, and a fortiori that photography is not a representational art. It is photography's mechanical nature prevents it from being an art of representation. This implies a transparency--Scott Walden in "Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism" states that we see nothing in a photograph but the objects that are photographed. Photographs are 'transparent,' by which is meant that in looking at photographs we "quite literally" see their subjects.

The claim that photography is not a representational art refers to a logically ideal photography, which he defines as having a purely causal and non-intentional relation to its subject. An ideal photograph of x implies that x exists and that it is, roughly, as it appears in the photograph. Yes, there is an intentional act involved in taking the photo, but it is not an essential part of the photographic relation. The appearance of the subject, therefore, is "not interesting as the realization of an intention but rather as a record of how an actual object looked". That implies that in so far as the photographer manipulates the image in some way, going beyond the 'ideal' photographic process, for example in a photo-montage, or digital techniques, then she becomes a painter.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:55 AM |