This week's reading was again from John Berger's"Ways of Seeing" but it was the chapter "Uses of Photography". The piece discusses the various uses for photography when it was first introduced - for example' police filing, war reporting, military reconnaissance, family albums and postcards etc. The main argument of is that photography has many uses but, what it most prominently does is preserve memories and recreate moments in time. Berger saw that photography is a transparent thing and offers direct access to real life and he likens the idea of photography to the human memory system.
Berger looks at how before photography was introduced there was the use of memory and what photographs do nowadays used to be done within human reflection. It is pointed out that human visual perception is a far more complex and selective process than what a film records - the camera saves a set of appearances from other inevitable further appearances, keeping memories and not allowing them to change. Unlike memories photographs do not preserve meaning, they just offer certain appearances without narrating anything - in other words photographs just preserve instant appearances. In conclusion to Berger's point, the photograph and memory system act as contributions to each other - the photograph stores the moment, but the memory narrates what a person or object is living.
Once discussing with my group about the article, we came up with a few questions fro consideration:
1. Within the article Berger links photography to religion - claiming it to be the "eye of god" as it the rise of photography corresponds to the decline of religion. The question being, is there actually a link between the two and is it something to consider or is it just coincidence?
2. How does taking pictures of people change the style or meaning of photography?
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