Thursday, October 21, 2010

Blog Response 19, 20, & 21

I'm not sure I can think of anything that shouldn't be photographed. At first I thought that a photo should never take advantage of people suffering for the sake of the photo. Since that thought I've changed my mind. A photographer certainly shouldn't take advantage of peoples' hardships, but what if those photographs bring social awareness to a serious problem? What first made me think about this is that famous photo of a Vietnamese child running from napalm. The Vietnam War was already becoming unpopular at the home front, but that photograph really pushed it over the edge. I'll consider anything allowed to be photographed under two stipulations:
1. It's done with respect
2. Ramifications of the photograph are considered

We can photograph a lot of things now. From a microscopic dust mite to the rings of saturn, nothing seems out of reach from the camera. The one thing that seems to allude the world of photography is bigfoot (I don't think that famous video counts). After countless sightings, I can only assume that cameras simply turn off at sight of that hideous monster. I retract my statement. Can air be photographed? Sure, steam, breath, fog, etc. can be photographed, but pure, unadulterated air seems to be successfully unphotographable. This response isn't a joke, modern technology makes me have to think really, really hard about what's still impossible in photography.

I've shot them before and I'll shoot them again, but I often feel rather uncomfortable photographing strangers. It's just a little bit out of my comfort zone, but sometimes I feeling like I'm prying in a way that I would never dare without a camera in my hands. Then again, who cares? They're only social norms anyway, and those piercing looks I get always make pretty interesting shots. Speaking of which, I never like to shoot pictures of children unless they're family or I'm being paid to do so. Something seems rather taboo about it, so I'd prefer to remove myself from the entire subject matter.

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