This article, written by John Szarkowski, is a summary of how photography transformed art and how we remember things through time. It doesn't matter who the photographer is and what the purpose of taking the photograph was. Pictures could be creations from knowledge and skill, while some could be created from an accident, misunderstanding, or experiment. But no matter what the photograph was taken of and who saw it- everyone sees the same thing-but no necessarily in the same way. A few reasons photography became a popular form of art was: inexpensive, easy, and it recorded anything- unlike other forms or art such as painting and drawing.
Later in the article, the author breaks up into sections the five most important parts of photography. The first one is The Thing Itself. He goes on to explain that this means that the photographer must face reality. The world by itself is art, and you can capture it in it's best forms if you pay attention it's movements and are creative with them. The second part is The Detail. One explanation that the author mentions was in the early days of photography. The goal of the photographer was to achieve some sort of narrative- kind of like an explanation of the photos through a sequence of different photos. A good example he states is the documentaries of the American Civil War. The purpose of the series of photographs was to make it seem real, not to make the story clear. A great photograph is one that has a narrative and symbolic view. The Frame was the third part that Szarkowski explains. Not only does a frame make a picture more decorative, but it initially displays the most important part of a piece of art. Achieving a perfect frame was nearly impossibly, and since enlarging a photograph was not practical, a photographer had to decide which fragment of the photograph he had to use. The time and effort it took to make a perfect photograph made people appreciate photographers' work that much more. Time is the essential part of photography. Every picture, no matter what time it was taken or what it was taken of- describes a part of time.What was really unique about photography was that slow lenses and slow films a photograph could actually display a time segment in several seconds. If the object moved, the photograph would suddenly show a blurred subject. Into a deeper aspect of time, a picture could capture the beauty and feeling of the time. The last important part of photography was the Vantage Point, or place where something can be viewed. Since the beginning of photography, artists have been exploring new techniques for shooting such as a bird's eye view and distorting the subject. This article overall explains the influence of photography on art and artists.
I found this article to be very boring. If I were to write an article about this subject I would have used more modern day examples. I also found the vocabulary he used to be confusing. But, to give him the benefit of the doubt, it was a very informative article. In detail he described the important parts of photography and used good examples.
