This post is part of the A to Z 2020 Challenge. I have decided to theme the posts around personal and societal responses to the Covid 19 crisis, including my resumption of Blogging!
Why do we take Photographs?
Every photograph is a “snapshot” of a moment in time but I think we take them for many different reasons – though it can be for several reasons at the same time. Perhaps too, it has to do with the kind of photographer you are – do you make your living from photography, are you like me – a keen amateur or do you just take pictures on your phone (because who needs an actual camera these days). I do have an SLR with a choice of lenses but I too take pictures on my phone because taking out my SLR – in its bag with all the accessories – that makes it a photography trip and the rest of the time I still have my phone camera. So! Right there is an implied difference – when I take my “proper” camera I hope to achieve some more considered? artistic? special? pictures. Yet all of these things, I have achieved on my phone too. So it must be the intention, the sensibility with which I take the shot that matters.
I take pictures when I am surveying buildings to remember things when I am drawing them up on the computer, I take arty shots, funny shots, I take pictures on holiday or days out with my partner in order to remember the day. (Before we all had cameras, we bought Picture Postcards for the same reason…) I have taken pictures as evidence following a car crash and I take pictures of objects such as the brand of coffee I want my grandson to buy for us whilst he is doing our lockdown shopping or to remember them for later – visual notes to self.
Some of these uses are only economically possible because of digital cameras. My first camera – a hand-me-down from my father, I used to, like him, take coloured slides and they were expensive to get processed – even at 12 to a roll, so I composed my pictures very carefully and almost never got a disappointing result. Noe I can pop away like a pro at a fashion suit but the lack of care means I can take a hundred pictures and none of them might be right. But going back to the abstract uses of pictures such as remembrance – how often do we look at the photographs we have taken, we don’t tend to print them out but must look at them on some kind of electronic device and yet that makes it easier to share them with others – you don’t have to invite them round for a slide show of your latest holidays…
If you take a picture – primarily to remember something or somewhere or someone, is it just you the photographer’s memory or can you share it with another as a memory? Even for the one you are with it can have a different connotation. ME: “Smile so I can have a record of you at this charming café in this lovely seaside town.” PARTNER: “OK but you have to let me check it!” ME: Snap “Okay – here it is…” PARTNER: “Oh my God, that sunshine shows up all my wrinkles – no you’ll have to delete that!” ME: “Yes but it’s just for us to remember today by.” PARTNER: “Well if you must – but don’t you dare put it on Facebook!” And if there was a photo deemed fit for Facebook – would it be a memory for the people who saw it – no – it would be something else even though it might trigger memories about the person or place or object featured in the viewer. And if a photo doesn’t trigger memories, it may trigger emotions and perhaps that would then make it Art – but that’s another story.
So to summarise – here is a list of all the things I can think of, that a photograph can be:-
An Aide Memoire
A Record
Reportage
A Note
Evidence
A Work of Art
A Stimulus
Pornography
A Missive
My original idea for this post was to choose three pictures I have taken which I would keep purely for Remembrance and to challenge readers to do the same but then I got thinking about all the multiple roles that a photograph can have but before I present my selection, I can’t resist putting a couple of questions out there…
Selfies! What’s that all about? And Instagramming your meals – who is that for? And so many pictures of pets? Well I guess I know the answer to that one to be fair.
So here are my three pictures and PLEASE choose three of yours which you would keep for the memory (though they may also be beautiful or informative) they don’t have to be the ones that if your house were burning you would grab on the way out – just ones that are full of memories… Post them and send a link in the comments – thanks!
Or you could join my Linkz party (first time I’ve tried it…)
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/p/e9640b6c724d4424b5f4bebe30e6bf78
