#8

I love art, all forms of it. But I never really knew much about photography; that’s why I decided to take this class. Before I had almost looked at photography as a lesser art form, but after taking this class it’s obvious to me that photography is just as powerful and skill-requiring than any other kind of art. I learned a lot from being exposed to the work of all these artists I had never heard of before like Tierney Gearon and Shelby Lee Adams; it was so interesting to see why they make photographs and what in their life made them into the artists they are.
I also learned a lot about just the nature of images. Some snippets from a few of the readings and comments that came up in class would start the gears in my head going. I learned a lot from thinking about photography and truth, and if just a moment of film can convey a whole life or the whole truth of a situation. It also got me thinking about time, the way a photograph really does kind of steal a second of time and preserves it. I learned a lot about just how personal and individual photographs are – looking at a photograph really is like looking into the mind of the photographer, even though it comes out of a machine. It was also interesting to think about the way people accept/don’t accept photographs. We live vicariously through them, we hyper idealize them, we put them on like a mask, we swallow them as truth while at the same time we no longer believe anything we see… looking at how people relate to photographs really says a lot about the way humans think and feel. We really do live in such an image-centered world.
I still have a few questions about photography, I still haven’t fully made up my mind on how I stand some artists’ work, or whether a staged photograph can tell the truth of a situation more accurately than a purely observational one, or how unbiased a photograph can be. I still have a lot to think about. But now, armed with the knowledge and exposure gained from taking this class, I’m sure I will continue to crystallize my ideas and stances about photography.