Research task
Read ‘Photography’ (Chapter 2) in Howells, R. (2012) Visual Culture on the OCA student website. Note down your own response to Howells’ arguments. (Boothroyd, 2020:35)
Howells considers the relationship between photography and reality and how it can represent the world in its 2-D form. To this he sets out a brief history of photography, and its uses. But he then poses several questions:
-Due to ease of mechanical reproduction, can photography be considered an artist medium?
-Does authorship give this artistic creative achievement?
-Does subjectivity in photography and the creative potential of form over content render photography artistic?
My notes and responses:
– Howells considers the viewpoint set out by Roger Scruton, writer and philosopher that photography is simply a mechanical representation of a subject and can’t transcend that. He points out that there is more to a photograph than its subject matter as this is only conveyed by a photographer by using a number of creative and technical choices-firstly the aesthetic potential of a subject needs recognising, then in the developing and printing there are further choices made. Howell objects to the assertion that photography is only about subject matter choices.
– He asserts that we respond not to what a photograph shows, but to how it shows it,
“A photograph, after all, has formal properties that transcend its subject matter” (Howells, 2012:194), as photographers turn subjects into compositions.
– Howells gives examples of photographers who were photographing where form was more important than the subject matter, often everyday objects photographed in unusual ways, and the image is the focus not the subject, such as Paul Strand, Siskind and Edward Weston. He cites that Siskind believed that “the meaning should be in the photograph and not the subject photographed (Lyons, 1965:6-7). Howells points out that artists such as these transformed the ugly into the artistic, so it is untenable to suggest that photographs are not art.
– Howells does agree that Documentary photography is more likely to be a representation of how something looks, but caveats this with how you may still choose what’s in the frame. He goes on to show that a photographer is even making choices when he decides to photograph something – this is subjective, as is the intent of the documents.
– Howells discusses the theories of Andre Bazin and the ontology “essence” of photography. The acknowledgement of the physical relationship between the object photographed and the photograph, but the understanding that the photograph in turn frees the subject from this relationship of time and space. Bazin believed that photography could be greater that creative power, even surreal as the distinction between the imaginary and the real disappears (Howells, 2012:199).
– Howells concludes that photography is a medium that is neither wholly or imaginary, and that this is its strength.
– On the semiotics of photography, he notes that the literal meaning of an image may not be its complete meaning.
– He covers the key debates of Scruton previously mentioned, as well as William King’s challenge to these views that photographers have particular ways of seeing (Howells, 2012:203). Also, that Warburton’s assertions that individual style is what makes an artist work distinctive, but this is not possible within a single image. Howells concludes accepting Warburton’s assertions, that when we contextualise a photographer’s work with their work as a whole, stylistic features, and intentions emerge, then photography can embody aesthetic intentions. “In other words, the photograph can now be seen as a work of art” (Howell, :205).
My response:
I very much enjoyed reading this chapter; I found it a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between photography and reality, and it introduced me to, new for me, writers and philosophers. I found his style easy to read and therefore the content easy to assimilate,
Returning to 3 questions that he posed himself at the beginning of the chapter:
-Due to ease of mechanical reproduction, can photography be considered an artist medium?
-Does authorship give this artistic creative achievement?
-Does subjectivity in photography and the creative potential of form over content render photography artistic?
Howells has answered all of these. He has shown that photography is about much more than mechanical reproduction, in part, because we respond to the way subjects are shown in images.
He has also shown by example that authorship can bring artistic achievement. I was particularly interested that he uses as examples groups of photographers that I am leaning towards influencing my work, such as Weston; explicitly that it is the image in their work that is the art not the subject.
One of his arguments is nicely simple, that if an image can transform something ugly into something artistic, photography must be creative. His message is clear that photography is subjective, many choices are made when constructing an image and so it is a creative process. I also like his assertion that photography is neither wholly real or imaginative and look forward to playing with this in my work.
References:
Boothroyd, S (2020) Photography 3: Body of work coursebook. Open College of the Arts. Barnsley.
Howells, R. and Negreiros, J. (2012) Visual Culture. (s.l.): Polity.
Nathan Lyons (1965) Aaron Siskind, Photographer New York: George Eastman House, cited in Howell pp.195.
NIKI SOUTH 