trevorslist
Through all of my creative life, photography has never been one of my strong suits. I enjoyed plenty of disposable cameras
in my youth but struggle to capture anything artful beyond the joy of my friends. I think this is because I have the hardest time with compositions when creating an image and photos without human subjects can get stiff
fast. The extra oomph of good photojournalism is always what's compelled me about the artistry of photography, the environmental storytelling, the carefully framed shots. I loved poring over 90s National Geographic issues in high school art class
to find the perfect images for my collages. There is possibly something to be said about the colonization of a white photographer travelling to third world countries and practicing the kind of voyeuristic non-intervention
specified by Sontag. In the interest of opening local tradition up to the commentary of Americans with no cultural context, a photographer will search for the most unorthodox image to capture to get people talking.
It seems, from the time of 1977 when this essay was written, culture has been arcing towards the convenient. The critique of overvaluance of convenience struck me because it is so often complained about in today's articles about the state of
society. As cameras became cheaper, smaller, more user friendly, it became a mark of neglectful parenting not to capture every stage of your child's life, the implications of which are still reverberating through the modern day.
Armed with a high-powered computer in your pocket at every moment of every day, what excuse do you have not to put it between yourself and every magnificent thing you see?
I was recently inspired by Christopher Anderson's series of photos published in Vanity Fair
depicting Trump's cabinet at discomforting closeness. The masterful awkwardness speaks to his skill and ability to consciously break rules. As a form of quiet protest, I think it worked well. A soft murder, as Sontag would put
it. While the subjects themselves could comment on the photos coming out poorly, they were still widely distributed and won't leave the collective consciousness for a while. The cabinet is locked in these photographs like the man in the mirror, unable to escape
or distort what has been already captured -- "testify[ing] to time's relentless melt". In a digital world where we are inundated with not only photos but also moving images, world news, death counts, academia, and conspiracy at every second, it can be hard to
slow down and take in the meaning of a single, still image at a time. Despite this, photographers march steadily ahead and release their photos to the cavernous mouths of the Internet, unable to stifle their attempts at creating novel images for the waiting masses.
As Sontag diagnoses with pinpoint accuracy, "Photographs were seen as a way of giving information to people who do not take easily to reading." I can't help but wonder what the proliferation of images on addictive social media sites means for us moving forward.