Cameras implement an aesthetic view of reality by being a machine-toy that extends to everyone the possibility of making disinterested judgments about importance, interest, beauty. ~ Susan Sontag
Note that Sontag is talking about the possibility of making a disinterested judgment. The camera doesn’t care what’s in front of the lens. A rusty gate leaning against a slowly deteriorating wall? Fine. Ivy doing its slow work of simultaneously living and destroying? Sure. A scene almost exclusively in shades of grey? Okay. A physical catalog of textures? Why not? The machine-toy has no notion of importance, completely lacks interest in anything, and is ignorant of beauty.
The judgment is made by the photographer. If you point the machine-toy at a thing or an event, you’ve made a judgment about the importance of that thing/event. If you point the machine-toy, you’ve declared some level of interest. If you point the machine-toy, you may be acknowledging beauty. It doesn’t matter if the viewer shares the photographer’s judgment.
But in this case I do. I very much like this little chunk of reality. I very much enjoy Clara’s decision to point her camera at that gate, at that ivy, at that wall, at those textures. I very much enjoy this as a photograph. But I also very much enjoy knowing that Clara saw beauty, saw something of interest, saw something important enough in that gate-wall-ivy-texture to pause and shoot the photograph. To stop, consider the composition, decide what belonged in the frame and what didn’t, and trigger the shutter. We’re not just seeing gate-ivy-wall-texture here; we’re learning how Clara sees the world.
I like this photograph, and this photograph makes me like Clara.
Photo "19369152490" not found (invalid ID)Photo "19369152490" not found (invalid ID)Photo "19369152490" not found (invalid ID)Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
