Criticizing Photographs: Chapter 7

This chapter is about theories and the importance of theories in photography. Barrett questions whether theories are necessary to photography. He points out that theories are made by all types of people associated with photography and art. When you look at a photograph, you begin to develop your own theory almost instantly. Barrett moves on to talk about the truth of photographs. Now personally, I would rather not alter my images via Photoshop or some other program. It seems like the point of photography, at least when it was first developed, is to record the truth of an event or scene. However, many war photographers would move things around in a scene to make it more interesting, therefore, altering an image in a way. Also, since the very beginning of photography as a medium, people have gone back and forth about whether it should be considered art. I think that all types of photography can be considered art, however, not all photographs show the truth. Photographs only show the viewer what the photographer wanted to show.

Barrett also goes on to talk about the morality of photographs. Is it moral to show someone dying of an incurable disease? Would anyone even want to look at that, let alone purchase it? He mentions a photojournalist, Rankin Waddell, who was just down the street from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and how Waddell decided not to photograph the destruction. Waddell said "I didn't want to mediate it in any way, to document it in any way, deal with it like that. I wanted to deal with it personally. I thought, 'My experience of this is not going to be through photography.'" (page 191) Other photographers might have jumped at the opportunity to photograph this event, but Waddell didn't.

It's important to remember that with all the new technology developing around us, things might not look as they seem. We are now taught to question whether a photograph has been manipulated or if it's a pure image. It's becoming more difficult to decipher what is true and what is false, however with all the new developments, the creative possibilities are endless.