Hello everybody! I'm well and truly not dead - yes I know, your probably all excited to know that XD

I would like to present you with a setting; simply for perspective reasoning.


Now I've been reading a lot of theory on photography - one major find by was John Tagg (1984) Burden of representation.
But for now just mull on my title - 'The impact of method - the reliability of photographs as documents'

   Photography is such a controversial topic, on the basis of it's factual use. However this applied just as much in the 1800's than it does in todays digital age. Within the past few years the term 'photoshopped' has plagued a now paranoid nation into believing not everything they are seeing, is actually the truth. How ironic would it be then if I said - an image is just as manipulated before even entering photoshop.

I bet you're all wondering, what on earth is she talking about?

My journey first started when I was studying for my dissertation - my subject was extremely broad and I found myself with an abundance of text to research. I was researching whether methods of documenting history (text, photography, paintings) had any effect on the reliability of the resulting history documented. So take a painting of a landscape, it's sole purpose to do nothing but document a landscape. I'm not talking about realism, surrealism or even abstract - i'm talking about objectivity. Would you look at a painting as a more truthful document than say a photograph? The answer is usually no. Even if it was a very realistic piece of artwork? The answer remains the same...and here's why. People's faith in photography is vast, but misguided. A camera can do something that no painter can, it can ONLY document what is really there. Yes - people can manipulate an image. But the camera can not. So doesn't that make photographs completely objective? Absolutely not. No more than paintings. Why? Because of us...the photographers.


I'm currently reading Susan Sontags (1977) book called 'On photography' and trying to get hold of Roland Barthes (1980) famed 'Camera Lucida'.

Would be nice to get people's view on this. Besides the random spur of journal - how is everyone? (:

Thanks to everyone who faves, features, comments and views my work, who watches me and who gives me words of support. I luff you guys! ;D
CSS and Graphics by me Nariscuss and brushes from Aethereality
If you want to request a journal design note me and i'll see what i can do ^^