October 18, 2015


Susan Sontag, "As Wittgenstein argued for words that the meaning is the use-so for each photograph."  And it is in this way that the presence and proliferation of all photographs contributes to the erosion of the very notion of meaning, to that parceling out of the truth into relative truths which is taken for granted by the modern liberal consciousness."

We have through photography a vast library of images both personal and historical.

Through these shared cultural memories we see a depiction of humanity both good and bad.  These captured moments leave us with a foundation to build off of and grow as a culture and a human being. We evolve through our cultural memories, passed down through the generations.

Historical memories can be ugly and violent yet show us what mankind is capable of and this can instill in us a need to change the images to a better purpose.

Image creation is part of our shared past.  Iconic images that define us in space and time in those rare moments beyond change.  These images are powerful examples of the plight of our culture and humanity, a long distance running to a shared reality of acceptance, responsibility and the possibilities for change.

Family memories were centered around your personal memories and relationships with your home life.  These memories gave each family member a unique place in the family dynamic and also built continuity through the years, a stability of your families time line and its influences on you and the community in which you live.  These images were created originally for family members only and these private images became icons of the family history, a prideful knowing of your past.

Memories become us, we can accept or deny them but either way we incorporate then into ourselves as sign posts to follow or veer away from.  These images are a foundation, a stepping off place to create and perpetuate the family history for future generations to build off of.  These memories, on two dimensional photo paper, drive and motivate family members to be more like a favorite cousin Bill or Uncle Harry and instill in the family a cohesion of forward thinking.

Social Media has construed to take our shared memories, both cultural and family and exploit our shared memories for profit.  Explode them into individual fragments of time, pieces of our lives once shared with meaning and identity but now as entertainment.  As distractions from creating memories that help society move forward and escape the traps of ego, greed and power. It seems now our prime directive is to snap a pic of every moment and post it immediately on a collective display, losing the connection with your families shared consciousness.

We are becoming a shallow minded population of ego driven trivia hounds that are being exploited for commercial profit by giving away our personal content for free and vainly exposing ourselves to the collective consciousness of externalized greedy eyes. In the short scheme of our lives we are becoming our uploaded posts. We are living not for intimacy with others but as a performer on a social media stage.

Now in this banal photography explosion of senseless mimicry, we are not growing in purpose, striving to be more observant of what is really happening with the exploitation of nature, and the exploitation of our own living moments as objective content for profit. We are being trained to escape from our real lives and live our moments through cyber space, exploring the minutia of frivolous details posted on media sites, that hungrily demand, the look at me everybody I am here, I exist!

Cartier-Bresson, "To take photographs is to find the structure of the world-to revel in the pure pleasure of form, to disclose that in all this chaos there is order."

Yes, now the chaos is the explosion of images being transmitted every millisecond, expanding not our understanding of order, of uniqueness, of originality but all the same babble, as the talking heads we see on TV.  No depth of feeling or a need to express some inner longing, to share through purposeful image creation a uniqueness of insight but now a free for all, where any hollow image becomes a viral look at me ticket to your 1 second of fame.

Nothing is original that is done with shallow eyes, that force themselves onto any subject, whereby the image created is a reaction to the camera.

Good image making is building that relationship first with the subject, taking the time to relate to the scene and create an atmosphere of shared empathy and through that relationship good images  will follow.

Shared cultural memories are important for a society to function. By fragmenting our lives through social media we break down society into separate parts with no cohesive identity.  This allows a wedge to form, an us against them (created) mentality where we fight in the big muddy of social entertainment and not with the issues that need a cultural solution a unified voice for change now.

Susan Sontag wrote, The camera is indeed the instrument of "fast seeing"as one confident modernist, Alvin Langdon Coburn, declared in 1918, echoing the futurist apotheosis of machines and speed."

My advice is to slow down and enjoy your moments and your relationship with nature.  Quit passing up important moments of revelation by a quick pic and then head bent toward a screen.  Look up into the eyes of others.