7.

Due to the nature and timing of this exhibition and the market to that we appeal. The title "the start" was apt. It allowed me to select works in their most primitive form at "the start" before they begin to develop. The show i found was an ideal oppurtunity for myself to submit work, with my dissertation running alongside the VIBE exhibitions i felt that the exhibitions allowed for an oppurtunity to use the research i was undertaking for my dissertation and apply it directly to practical work. 

 

Discussions of photographs rest upon some notion of the nature of the photograph and how it acquires meaning. There are two distinct fields of theoretical thinking that have been raised. Firstly, the theoretical approach based on the relationship of the image to reality, that is realism. Secondly, the discussion which stresses on the importance of the interpretation of the image by focusing upon the reading, rather than taking, of photographic representations.

Photography itself excels in the area of realism, for example photographs of crime are more likely to be admitted as forms of evidence. Paintings and drawings are normally dismissed. In philosophical terms, any concerns with truth to appearances or traces of reality presupposes reality as a given, external entity. Notions of the photograph as witness offering descriptive testimony, ultimately rest upon the view of reality as external to the human individual and objectively appraisable. If reality is somehow there, present, external and available for objective recording, then the extent to which the photograph offers accurate reference, and the significance of the desire to take photographs or to look at images of particular places or events, become pertinent.

Many writers on art have claimed that photography is inherently realistic. Since this medium operates mechanically to produce images through the use of light, it is alleged that photographic depiction can occur without the intervention of artistic intentions, and that the results possess an unusual truth. Therefore photographs are seen as reproductions of the original subject matter rather than representations of it. They serve as testimonials, as pointed out earlier, photographs, not paintings, are used as evidence.

Sontag defined the photograph as a trace directly stencilled off reality, like a footprint. Sontag refers to a photograph as freezing a moment in time, however she goes on to argue that if the photograph is to mislead the viewer, then it is at the fault of the photographer and is due to the photographer not having found an adequate means of conveying what he or she wishes to communicate  about a particular set of circumstances.

Susan Sontag draws an analogy between the prisoners in Plato's cave and our viewing of photographs. Thus leading us to draw a perception on the world. Photography being so wide a subject matter, it has become a direct influence on our tastes, i.e. what we believe is worth seeing and what we feel we should see. Consequently it must therefore be safe to assume that photographs are directly associated with reality, and why we certify our experiences through taking photographs.

Isolating light the still removes itself from the subject that is being documented and in turn creates an abstract semiotic viewpoint.