Photograph's Original Version The Image example essay topic

Memory has been and always will be associated with images. As early as 1896, leading psychologists were arguing that memory was nothing more than a continuous exchange of images. (Bergson) Later models of memory describe it as more of an image text; a combination of space and time, and image and word. (Yates) Although image certainly is not the only component of memory, it is undoubtedly an integral and essential part of memory's composition. Photography was first utilized over 100 years ago in an attempt to preserve life as it existed before the industrial revolution. Over time photography has gradually corrupted memory in a variety of ways, despite its original intention to preserve it.

From there, photography has evolved to become a pressing threat not only to memory, but also to consciousness. As seen in paintings of battle scenes and portraits of wealthy Renaissance aristocracy, people have always strive d to preserve and document their existence. The creation of photography was merely the logical continuum of human nature's innate desire to preserve the past, as well as a necessary reaction to a world in a stage of dramatic and irreversible change. It is not a coincidence that photography arose in major industrial cities towards the end of the nineteenth century.

The industrial revolution created the societal circumstances necessary for photography to be born. The first and most obvious condition is that of technological advancement. Industry was advancing and expanding so rapidly that history appeared to be distancing itself from the present with unusual speed. Up until this time period life had not changed much from decade to decade or even from century to century. Photography's popularity during the industrial revolution was, in large part, a result of people's desire to slow down the perceived acceleration of history (McQuire). It has been argued that the acceleration of historical time is "leading to the possible industrialization of forgetting" and that "we will not only miss history... we will also long to go back to space and times past".

(Virilio) The desire to stop time and preserve the way things were are the primary reasons why the majority of photography in the late nineteenth century focused on documenting dying traditions, practices, and ways of life. In 1874, the Society for Photographing the Relics of Old London was founded. In 1897 the National Photographic Record Association was founded by Sir Benjamin Stone with the aim of "documenting dying rural ceremonies and traditional festivals in England". (McQuire 125) Even as early as 1855, Sir Fredrick Pollock, in a speech to the Photographic Society of London stressed the importance of the camera in its role to forever preserve history: It is not too much to say that no individual - not merely individual man, but no individual substance, no individual matter, nothing that is extraordinary in art, that is celebrated in architecture, that is calculated to excite the admiration of those who behold it, need now perish, but may be rendered immortal by the assistance of Photography.

(Harwath-Booth 9) Walter Benjamin argues that the industrial boom of the nineteenth century was also the death of oral tradition. According to Benjamin, oral tradition was dependant on a "community of listeners", people who listened to the stories and retold them in the future. These people were the image and the printed text of history before the printing press and the instant photo even existed. The noisy factory and long hours of tedious labor forced upon society by the industrial revolution effectively killed oral tradition and created a void that would be filled by photography.

(McQuire) With the death of oral tradition, photography became a widely used means of passing history through the generations. Anthropology has been one major way in which photography has assisted in the telling of life and history. However, the relationship between photography and anthropology has come under heavy criticism as a result of the techniques employed by some ethnographers. The most criticized type of anthropological photograph is the image that separates subjects from their environments. The supposed goal of the separation is to highlight the subject's ethnicity and culture.

If the goal, however is to highlight culture, it seems that displaying the subject in his or her own culture would be more effective. (Miller 135) Irving Penn's Two New Guinea Men Holding Hands is a common example of the subject being removed from the environment. (see fig. 1) The photograph taken in Penn's studio is in a style popular among ethnographers; it has been used for years by E.S. Curtis and has recently been refined by Richard Avedon. The background and the studio settings have been criticized widely as "removing subjects from the daily flow of their lives... and cross breeding fashion and anthropology". (Miller 135) The effect of this photograph on memory is to imprint a false image not only of two people but also of an entire culture. Penn's image gives his viewer no idea of how these two men exist in reality. Because of the studio setting, the viewer cannot even safely assume that this is how the two men really dress or interact with each other.

The most common association made between history and photography is not anthropology; it is the documentation of the Holocaust. Holocaust photography has been and always will be burdened by its inherent requirement to fulfill dual roles in society: the role of giving an accurate portrayal of the events that actually occurred for future generations so we will "never forget", and the seemingly contradictory role of being respectful to those represented in the images. In her book Trespassing Through The Shadows Andrea Liss cites the use of photographic documentary as being as much of a "salient problem in the representation of history" as the processes of transferring events into memory and "history into post memory". (xii) She goes on to quote Dorothea Lange who discusses how photography fails to fully capture history. The statement is made that photography merely focuses on the extremes of society and not the "underpinnings"; this gives the opinion that photography is becoming more of a genre of entertainment than one of pure historical documentation. Liss notes that the majority of the documentation inside the ghettos and camps during wartime conditions was in fact commissioned by the Nazi's with the intention of showing the world that the members of the camps were safe and in certain cases even employed. (1) However, she does mention that some of the most pure and horrific images are those taken by the Nazi's themselves, and were never meant to be seen by the public.

(9) Many images taken by United States and British photographers are also brought under question for various reasons. For example, the work of Margaret Bourke-White is questioned because of its journalistic intent. As a result of White's affiliation with the press, many of her images are close up shots, and action shots. Therefore, Liss argues that a great portion of what even White herself experienced is lacking from her documentary. White's political stance regarding the United States' non-action in attempting to promote democracy in post-war Germany is another factor that affected how White chose to portray what she witnessed. Liss' most relevant point is that photography is not at all objective.

By demonstrating that what you see in a photograph isn't necessarily the way things were, she is hinting that photography isn't necessarily any less corruptible than someone's spoken or written account of an event. (3) When examining the effect of photographs on memory, especially holocaust photographs, it is imperative to take into account the context in which they are viewed. In her critique of Holocaust photography Liss focuses on a portrait of Art Spiegelman's (author of the Holocaust based cartoon Maus) brother, which was taken before he was sent to Auschwitz: This is a portrait steeped in sorrow, at once dreamy and vivid, a photograph that has come loose from its time frame and reaches across the abyss of the unimaginable with its profound presence. It tantalizes the contemporary viewer... The sobering innocence and devastating power of this image challenge the tendency of the family snapshot to romanticize the past.

(56-57) Her feelings about the way Spiegelman uses photography are extremely passionate. However, had the image not been associated with the death of the child and the Holocaust, would her opinion of the picture and the emotion it evoked had been the same? If it were not for the context in which it existed, the image could certainly be seen as nothing more than a grade school portrait from the 1930's. The circumstances of the photo certainly change the way in which it is viewed and remembered.

Because additional information is seemingly necessary for one to obtain the full effect of the image, I wonder if the image's only true effect is to supplant the boy's real face in place of the one imagination would have created in its absence. In contrast, Scott McQuire uses Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida to make a different point. Barthes' argument is that a photograph is never an actual memory because "it actually blocks memory, quickly becomes a counter-memory... because on each occasion it [the photograph] fills sight by force" (McQuire 128) Barthes goes on to explain how one cannot refuse anything that is presented in photographs. In contrast to the written or spoken word, or other kinds of images such as paintings, all of which offer the viewer a degree of subjectivity room for doubt, the photograph offers only hard, true facts. In his view, eliminating subjectivity and doubt makes it impossible to ever refute anything about the captured moment. He therefore feels that photography is "alien" in comparison to the process of remembering because it involves the process of forgetting.

Because photography robs the viewer of this right, it cannot be considered an aid to or a substitute for memory. Barthes' view is different because he believes that although photography is an objective art form, it is still no substitute for memory. Not only can photos be inaccurate due to context and the element of human participation, the physical images themselves can also be altered to distort memory. Halla Beloff contends that photography is not as inherently true as it might seem. Unlike Andrea Liss who highlighted the ways in which photographs can be altered while the photographer is taking them, Beloff shows how photographs can be easily manipulated after they have been printed. In her view, photography can be fragile and therefore the meaning contained in photographs is extremely vulnerable to misrepresentation.

She uses Dorothea Lange's image, Plantation overseer and his field hands, taken in the Mississippi Delta in 1936 as an example. The image was published as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Farm Security Administration project, which documented the plight of migrant workers in the conditions of the dust bowl of the 1930's. In the photograph's original version (see fig. 2) the image showed the overweight white boss placing his foot on his car in a very authoritative manner "spatially dominating his black underlings". This version of the images has been identified as an exemplary commentary of the "ruler and the ruled" by George P. Elliott.

(122-123) Two years after Lange's photo was taken it was published again in 1938 in The Land of the Free, accompanying Archibald MacLeish's hymn to the American Dream: We told ourselves we were free because we were free. We were free because we were that kind. We were Americans. We were free because of the Battle of Bunker Hill and the constitution adopted at Philadelphia. In order to fit the message of the hymn, the image had to be drastically altered: the vast majority of the original photograph was cut out, leaving only a close up portrait of the old white man. (see fig. 3) Combined with Archibald MacLeish's hymn, the effect the image has on its viewer is completely different.

Originally, a compelling portrait of the plight of the laborer in times of economic depression, the image is transformed into a "straight nationalistic message". Beloff's example makes it evident how easily an image can be manipulated to convey a viewpoint, not only different, but completely opposite of what was originally intended by the photographer. Beloff's example provides a distinct counter argument to Roland Barthes' contention that photography is too irrefutable and undeniable, but both are examples of how photography can corrupt and alter memory. Recently, the integrity of photography has been dramatically affected by invention of digital alteration. The presence of digital technology in photography brings a new light to questions of photography's integrity. However, alterations similar to those that made digital photography famous have been in practice for years.

(Brennen and Hardt) As early as 1927 the process of photoengraving had become so advanced that a photograph could be completely "retouched". The first image (see fig. 4) of the girl and her mother was taken in a studio. The stool, shiny floor, curtains and scene outside the window in the second photo (see fig. 5) were all added through photo engraving. (Brennen and Hardt 56 [Robert Craig]) As the digital alteration of images has advanced throughout the 1980's and 90's the debate on technology has raged among the photographic community, especially within the fields of documentary photography and photojournalism. Several extreme examples of digital editing used by major credible institutions finally caused the National Press Photographers Association to take a firm stance on the issue. "National Geographic's decision to move pyramids to better fit the magazine's cover, a cola can digitally eliminated from a portrait, and finally the heads of famous people showing up on others' bodies" were the main cases that prompted the NPPA to make its decree.

The regulations set forth by the NPPA only allow for the correction of flawed images. (178-179) However, these regulations should offer viewers of photography very little comfort: the regulations set forth by the NPPA, have absolutely no say in what all other image-makers do with their images. Also, it is imperative that we not forget photography is considered an art, especially by those responsible for producing the photographs. There is no reason why they should not, and would not, use any and every available tool, as any artist would, to improve their work as they see fit. Despite the severely enforced regulations, even photojournalists continue to drastically alter their images to better suit their needs.

For example, in 1997 Storm i Greener was suspended from her job at the Minneapolis Star Tribune without pay for digitally eliminating power lines from a shot of a snow covered bridge. (158-159) These particular instances of digital editing will not have a huge effect on memory and history, but they highlight the dangers that digital editing presents to photography's overall sense of objectivity and validity. Digital imaging has essentially transformed photography, and therein represents a transformation in the nature of visual ity. While there are not yet serious cases of digital imaging distorting memory, the cases that do exist could be foreshadowing of the more drastic effects that are certain to come. The digital revolution has the potential to completely rob photography of the objectivity it is perceived to have. In On Photography Susan Sontag offers support for the idea that photography can distort meaning and memory through not only the process of taking pictures and altering pictures, but also in one more radical way.

She argues that all pictures offer inherently distorted representations of actual events: A photograph is not just the result of an encounter between an event and a photographer; picture-taking is an event in itself, and one with ever more peremptory rights - to interfere with, to invade, or to ignore whatever is going on... After the event has ended, the picture will still exist, conferring on the event a kind of immortality (and importance) it would never have otherwise enjoyed. (11) Susan Sontag's view relates to all previously discussed forms of photography in addition to one more extremely important topic: amateur family photography. I can personally ascribe to the idea of moments preserved by photographs having added importance in my life that they would not have otherwise been granted. I tend to remember random moments captured on film more often and in more detail than the rest of my life. The effect of the family photo album has even caused me to fabricate memories.

I have often asked my mom about what I believed to be one of my earliest memories only to have her bring out the family album and show me the picture I had stolen the memory from. I had not actually remembered the event, I had only remembered seeing the photograph and my imagination took control from there to form what appeared to me to be a fully functional real memory. The popularity of the amateur photography industry assures me that I am not the only one who has had these experiences. The rapid growth of the industry since Kodak first issued their instamatic camera in the early 1960's, however, brings to light an entirely new problem photography presents to memory. According to the Wolfman Report on the photographic industry in 1974 Americans took six billion pictures yielding an estimated total world revenue of nearly six billion dollars for the industry. (Freund 203) The United States Department of Commerce's report on film shows that last year over eighty billion pictures were taken (an increase of seventy four billion images, roughly 1,300% in the last twenty five years), meaning that there are over 2,700 pictures taken every second around the world.

At this rate the Department of Commerce estimates that since they have been keeping records (roughly 1989) over 750 billion images have been created. (web) The effect of all of these images flooding into our consciousness has not gone unnoticed. Gisele Freund, one of amateur photography's major critics, argues that the camera has transformed people into passive objects that are transported from place to place. Today's amateur photographer tries to see as much as they can as quickly as they can. She questions this approach to photography because, in her opinion, the human mind can only "absorb so many new impressions in so short a time without confusing them". (202) I can attest to coming home from a long trip, developing my film, and only then remembering events captured by my camera. Freund argues that this phenomenon occurs because the camera has become our eyes.

As Freund puts it "There is no need to look at anything anymore - the camera sees for you" (203) Freund's thoughts on photography are eerily similar to those that Plato had thousands of years ago on the subject of recording history through writing: The fact is that this invention will produce forgetfulness in the souls of those who have learned it because they will not need to exercise their memories, being able to rely on what is written, using the stimulus of external marks which are alien to themselves rather than, from within, their own unaided powers to call things to mind. So it's not a remedy for memory, but for reminding you have discovered. (Derrida 102) The idea of the camera seeing for us, turning us into passive beings only capable of living through machines may seem far-fetched at first, but I believe it highlights one of the main threats photography poses to memory. Plato's quote on writing and memory shows that photography has the ability not only to give us altered and corrupted memories, but also to rob us of the memories we have. If the memory we have recorded on film is not accurate, then one can deduce that we have no real memory of our past. Roland Barthes once said that it always scared him when he saw a picture of himself that he could not remember taking.

Now, photography has evolved into such a massive commercial industry that it is impossible to remember every image ever taken. We are now bombarded by so many images that we actually have to tune them out in order to survive. Edith Kramer, an art therapist, believes that society has been flooded by so many images, be they commercial, professional or personal, that "to some extent we are all, perforce, rendered autistic". (80) According to Kramer, if the world continues at its present pace, people's survival will soon depend on "depressing stimuli rather than perceiving them". (80) Kramer goes on to argue that man has always been capable of destruction, but only recently have man's "constructions" become the destructive force.

(79) This is especially true of photography. Photography was originally constructed as a means of preserving memory, and at first it succeeded in its task. However, as the technology evolved and the medium became more popular, photography became destructive. With the impetus placed on remembering diminishing with every picture taken, man is gradually becoming forgetful.

With 2,700 pictures being taken every second, and the average man only able to process roughly seven images a second, man must become increasingly selective of the images he allows his consciousness to absorb and process. If we don't do that, we risk forgetting everything. Worst-case scenario: we all become autistic amnesiacs.

Bibliography

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Craig, Robert. "Fact, Public Opinion, and Persuasion: The Rise of the Visual in Journalism and Advertising". Picturing the Past: Media History & Photography. Ed. Bonnie Brennen, Hanno Hardt. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
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How Much Information? 9 May 2002.
University of California. Kramer, Edith. "The Art Therapists Third Hand: Reflections on Art, Art Therapy, and Society at Large". American Journal of Art Therapy Feb. 1986: 71-86.
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