How can a photograph be both an eternal, unchanging work of art and a document of change and the passage of time?
Post a quick paragraph in which you provide an answer to this seeming paradox. Within this paragraph, use at least one direct quote from an article posted to Blackboard (by Sontag, Kracauer, Barthes, or Bazin). Be sure to properly introduce and cite the direct quote; review the files in Blackboard titled "Using Source Material" in the "Academic Analysis" tab.
The image is forever captured and preserved exactly as it was. However, in the image there may be a child who has since grown up and is an adult. Also the clothes that are worn show that time has passed since styles change over time. According to Susan Sontag's the image world, "[t]o posses the world in the form of images is, precisely, to reexperience the unreality and remoteness of the real" (pg 164). In possessing a part of the world in the form of an image you have immortalized and frozen a moment in time, which is in itself a work of art. But because of the memory associated with this image you can feel distant it is because of the passage of time.
ReplyDeleteJose, which format (MLA or APA) are you using? Although your quote formatting is close to APA, it's not quite correct.
DeleteA photograph is both an eternal creation of art and a document of the passage of time. "It is not reality that photographs make immediately accessible, but images. For example, now all adults can know exactly how they and their parents and grandparent looked as children- a knowledge not available to anyone before the invention of cameras..."(Sontag 165). A captured image of a human at a given time shows the passage of time. For example, the clothing that is worn in the picture. This would give insight on the class the person was labeled to and the overall style of the time. The picture can then be compared to another image and it would be possible to witness how clothing has changed through the years. A photograph is valuable because it cannot be changed. Photographs can then be used as an accurate tool to study the changes that have occurred since the image was taken.
ReplyDeleteVincent, your quote is formatted as a free-standing quote (otherwise known as a floating or dropped quote). Review the file on "Using Source Material" in Blackboard again to see how to introduce and integrate direct quotes.
DeleteA scene or person, when captured in a photograph is forever stamped in the pose they were taken. One cannot change or alter it without the help of technology. Once a photograph is taken the image will remain the same. But when a photograph is passed from generation to generation, the next generation may look at the photograph differently. In the article, "Photography" by Siegfried Kracauer, he describes the grandchildren's reaction and expressions at seeing their grandmother as a young girl in 1864:
ReplyDeleteThey are irreverent, and today young girls dress differently. They laugh and at the same time they feel a shudder. For through the ornamentation of the costume from which the grandmother has disappeared they think they glimpse a moment of time past, a time that passes without return. (424)
The grandchildren are looking at their grandmother in a younger version looking like a diva. But her clothes and style look very different than what young girls in their time use. Even though the photograph captured their grandmother when she was young, they know that the photograph belongs to the past.
Vanessa, you have formatted this block quote correctly! Nice work. However, if in your actual essay the quote is not longer than three lines, you will not format it in the block style.
DeletePhotographs are essentially taken to capture a moment in time. These photographs not only serve as unchanging proof of the specific moment they were taken, but also serve as a historical marker to see how that moment has manifested. In her article, "The Image World", Susan Sontag states "Through being photographed, something becomes part of a system of information, fitted into schemes of classification and storage..." (156). Once taken, the subject of the photograph will remain permanent and provide the observer with information regarding a specific time period. This same photograph, when compared to a more recent photograph, can also provide information on how the subject has manifested over time.
ReplyDeleteJaimee, your formatting of the quote is almost correct. Put the comma inside the quotation marks of "World," and eliminate the ellipses after "storage."
DeletePhotographs can both be observed as a remarkable memory or they can be seen as events from the past simply embedded in the brain. It really depends on how the nature of the person is to view them. In the article, " The Image World" by Susan Sontag, it refers to how photographs can give life to an old picture from the past, or how it can hold simply a memory that has been marked by the passage of time. Susan states, "Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality, understood as recalcitrant, inaccessible; of making it stand still. Or they enlarge a reality that is felt to be shrunk, hollowed out, perishable, remote" (163). Pictures can make us reminiscence and bring back to life the moment within the picture. Conversely they can also hold a moment that is no more than history and no longer relevant to the present. Therefore it depends how the human eye individually wants to see these photographs.
ReplyDeletePaulo, you've formatted your quote correctly. Nice work. However, when you refer to authors, use their last names, so it's Sontag to you, not Susan.
DeleteA photograph can be both an external unchanging work of art and a document of change and the passage of time because a photograph is something permanent. A photo is an external unchanging work of art because once a photo is taken and printed it can't be altered and if it is altered after that, then it is an entirely different photograph. Photographs are a passage of time because their are some photographs taken that were old and from different time periods, thus showing how a photo can be a document of change. Photos show us how a society has changed from back then to now, but the photo doesn't externally change. Sontag better summerazies my point by saying, "Through photographs, we also have a consumer's relation to events, both to events which are part of our experience and to those which are not a distinction between types of experience that such habit-forming consuming ship blurs"(Sontag.156).
ReplyDeleteFareedah, your quote is close to correct. It should be "summarizes," and there should be no peiod between "Sontag" and "156."
DeleteA photograph can be both an external unchanging work of art and a document of change and a passage of time because people have different interpretations that influence how they preceive photographs. In the article, "The Image World" by Susan Sontag she explains, "We make of photography a means by which, precisely, anything can be said, any purpose served" (pg. 175). This quote suggests that an images tone can be influenced to show what ever the photographer intends. It also leaves reason to suggest that a photo can be interpreted in many different ways. It is only limited by the viewers perception of the image. Someone may see the beauty in the photo where another may view it as utilitarian. Photography is a medium that serves whatever purpose people interpret it to be. It may serve as a passage of time, unchanging art, and a document of change or all of these at the same time.
ReplyDeleteBrenda, are you using APA or MLA? If you're using APA, you need to give the year of publication (1977), and the "pg" should just be "p." If you're using MLA, you shouldn't use "pg" at all.
DeleteAccording to Seigfried Kracauer, "While time is not part of the photograph like the smile or the chignon, the photograph itself, so it seems to them, is a representation of time. If it is only the photograph that endows these details with duration, it is not at all they who outlast mere time, but, rather, it is time that makes images of itself out of itself " (Kracauer 424). He argues that photographs are seen as eternal because of the depth of details that construes the memory of the photograph. It is the personal significance of the photo to an individual that makes a photograph everlasting. However, time and photography are correlated with one another that results in the elements of photography changing. Kracauer states that photography is not only manipulated by the memories of the individual, but also the function of time. The understanding of a photograph may be difficult to envision because the context of the photograph may change according to the timeframe.
ReplyDeleteNice work, Viviana.
DeletePhotography captures a moment in time, this makes a photograph an unchanging work of art because that picture will never change, but a photograph is also documenting how a person was in the time that, that picture was taken, and as they grow and change that photograph is no longer an accurate depiction of how they are in the present. So when they look at that photograph that was taken in the past it is a documentation of how much time has gone by. In Kracauer’s Photography, he states that “photography presents a spacial continuum. Historicism seeks to provide the temporal continuum. According to historicism the complete mirroring of a temporal sequence simultaneously contains the meaning of all that occurred within that time” (425). Photography can accurately capture all of the meaning that occurred in the moment when you snap a picture and it will forever document that moment in time and provide a documentation to an event or how a person looked like.
ReplyDeleteNice work, Sarah
DeleteAccording to Susan Sontag, "There is an art and there are fashions of seeing things in order to make them interesting; and to supply this art, these fashions, there is a steady recycling of the artifacts and tastes of the past."(175) Sontag's use of the word "recycling" made this quote standout. It brilliantly answered the question at hand, which is how a photo can be a changing work of art and also be unchanging. Therefore, by renewing or "recycling" photos from the past, it can show those in the future what has changed and what has not. Thus, making photos an "eternal" changing and unchanging work of art.
ReplyDeleteZac, make sure the period goes at the end of the sentence (after the parenthetical page number): ... and tastes of the past" (175).
DeleteOtherwise, nice work
How can a photograph be both an eternal, unchanging work of art and a document of change and the passage of time?
ReplyDeleteAccording to Susan Sontag,"Knowing a great deal about what is in the world (art, catastrophe, the beauties of nature) through photographic images, people are frequently disappointed, surprised, un moved when they see the real thing (168). This quote answer the question because things that may seem unchanging, but when seen in reality they show the change. Therefore, photographs show the change by not changing, Also, when something changes in reality but not in photographs it shows the passage of time and how time has changed something.
Prabhjeet, be sure to use quotation marks at the end of your quote.
DeleteHow can a photograph be both an eternal, unchanging work of art and a document of change and the passage of time?
ReplyDeleteA photograph is an unchanging work of art that captures a fixed moment in a changing world. Time stands still in a photograph, but in the real world time continues to pass. This can be illustrated in a photograph that Siegfried Kracauer refers to in his article "Photography" of a young girl who enjoys modern fashion and newest technology of her time. Yet when this girl grows up and her grandchildren now view the photograph, they see a scene of the past, a document of change. Kracauer explaines "while time is not part of the photograph like the smile or the chignon, the photograph itself, so it seems to them, is a representation of time" (424). It is a representation of a time when their grandmother played a different role in life, and while pondering about the time that has passed in their grandmothers life it also forces them to consider the time that will pass until their grandchildren examine their own selfies taken today. For if photographs are pieces of history then what historic photos are they taking today?
Nice work, Lisa.
DeleteIn Siegfried Kracauer’s Photography, He states “The truth content of the original is left behind in its history; the photograph captures only the residuum that history has discharged” (429). Photographs can be eternal and unchanging work of art because they capture events or moments in the past. No matter how long ago the photograph was taken, it already happened. Photographs are often looked back at to remember how things used to be and how different they are now. They can document the change and passing of time. A mother can show her children photographs of herself at their age to show how different things were when she was younger. Photography can share moments of history that changed the world, such as the attack on Pearl Harbor, September 11th, and presidential inaugurations. Photographs are viewed as things left behind in history.
ReplyDeleteNice work, Paula, but don't capitalize "he" in your first sentence.
DeleteHow can a photograph be both an eternal, unchanging work of art and a document of change and the passage of time?
ReplyDeletePhotographs capture a still image that once taken cannot be changed. In this way they are eternal, unchanging works of art. As time passes one can look at the photograph and see how things may be different in the present versus how they were when the photograph was taken. In this way photographs document change and passage of time. In Kracauer's essay on photography he states, "For through the ornamentation of the costume from which the grandmother has disappeared they think they glimpse a moment of time past, a time that passes without return." (424) The image he refers to hasn't actually changed but the style of dress has. They are looking at an eternal, unchanging work of art and at the same time realizing the passage of time.
Melinda, the end period should go after the parenthetical citation: (424).
DeleteA photograph is an eternal work of art because it is an image which never changes. It is a work of art due to the value it holds. It may be a great memory that was captured. That makes it a valuable piece of art to someone who sees beyond what is in that picture. Pictures don't just show an image but it can tell a story behind what is seen. It's something that never changes and never loses it's value. According to Roland Barthes, "it's reality that of having-been-there, for in every photograph there is always stupefying evidence of this is how it was, giving us, by precious miracle, a reality from which we are sheltered" (278). With time it's just a memory that we hold onto more dearly. It is something that is documented and will forever be around. We compare those images to the present. It reveals to us what has changed in that period of time. When we take time to look back into those pictures we escape reality and go back into those special moments once lived.
ReplyDeleteNice work, Erik.
DeleteHow can a photograph be both an eternal, unchanging work of art and a document of change and the passage of time?
ReplyDeleteAccording to Susan Sontag, “Photography, which has so many narcissistic uses, is also a powerful instrument for depersonalizing our relation to the world; and the two uses are complementary. Like a pair of binoculars with no right or wrong end, the camera makes exotics things near, intimate; and familiar things small, abstract, strange, much farther away” (167). She states with her quote that photography can be changed and unchanged. She uses a paradox using an example of binoculars. A photograph can change when it is use to make another photograph. It can also stay the same when a photograph is preserved.
Nice work, Ruby.
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ReplyDeleteA photograph can be an eternal, unchanging work of art when the photographer sees it that way. When the photographer takes a picture they could be doing it to recall that specific moment. Every time they see the picture they will remember the feeling carried out during that occasion. As well as for remembering feelings, a photograph will also show the differences in between pictures taken years apart. Explained by Kracauer (1993), photography is used to notice the change in time, “So that's how one dressed back then: with a chignon, the waist tightly tied, in a crinoline and a Zouave jacket” (p. 424). What the photograph shows is the wardrobe people had and the difference from the wardrobe people have today.
Nice work, Maria.
DeleteA photograph can be both an eternal, unchanging work of art and a document of change and passage of time. According to Andre Bazin (1960), "Wherefore, photography actually contributes something to the order of natural creation instead of providing a substitute for it." Photography captures the image at the exact moment when the camera snaps the photograph. By capturing this image, the photograph will remain unchanged throughout history. These photographs help to document changes in nature, human life, and creativity. This leaves a natural creation and it can not be substituted by another image.
ReplyDeleteStephanie, be sure to cite the page number in a parenthetical citation after the quote.
DeleteA photograph can be an eternal, unchanging work of art because it captures a moment in time. In “The Ontology of the Photographic Image”, Bazin says that photos of people are copies of “lives halted at a set moment in their duration, free from their destiny” (Bazin 8). Photographs are fixed for eternity because they capture the subject and suspend that moment and free it from its destiny of deterioration and change. A photograph is also a document of change and the passage of time because over time the subject will change and we with a photograph we can refer back how it used to look objectively. For example, we can compare how family and friends looked ten years ago while staring at them and see all of the changes from when the photograph was taken to the present.
ReplyDeleteWesley, if you refer to the author in your sentence, you don't have to give the name again in the parenthetical citation. In this case, just give the page number.
DeletePhotographs are taken to capture moments, document change of passing time as well as be a work of art. In the article, “Photography” by Siegfried Kracauer, Kracauer goes into detail about a photograph that represents a work of art as well a passage of time. Kracauer states, “All right, so it is Grandmother, but in reality it is any young girl in 1864. The girl smiles continuously, always the same smile, the smile is arrested yet no longer refers to the life from which it has been taken” (423). The grandmother, the little girl in the picture is being referred to as the document of change. The life from which it has been taken and no longer refers to is the passage of time. The picture its self is a work of unchanging art. The picture will not change, the girl in the picture will continue to have the same arrested smile. Kracauer describes this picture as at work of art captured in time and looked at now, reflects the passage of time. When the grandmother of the photo or even her family members look at the photo, both are able to see the photo as a everlasting piece of art as well as a document of the past.
ReplyDeleteNice work, Carolyn.
DeleteThere are many events in life that most of us know about, but have not viewed in person. Bazin states “for the first time an image of the world is formed automatically, without the creative invention of man” (Bazin & Gray, 1960, p. 7). Photography allows us to witness a living moment, even if it is not at the same exact time, without actually being present. While that is the case, an image is saved and can be presented in various ways, although the image itself does not change. Photographs can be an eternal, unchanging work of art and a document of change and passage of time.
ReplyDeleteSahar, it looks like you're using APA. In this case, you'll format the quote like this:
DeleteBazin (1960) states, “for the first time an image of the world is formed automatically, without the creative invention of man” (p. 7).
A photograph can be both eternal and ever-changing. A photograph is eternal because it is a captured glimpse of time, a second in history. However, a photograph is also a document of change because as society advances its interpretation of the photograph also changes.
ReplyDeleteIn the journal, “Photography” by Siegfried Kracauer, he analyses how an old picture of his grandmother is interpreted by a younger generation. He states, “When Grandmother stood in front of the lens she was present for one second in the spatial continuum that presented itself to the lens. But it was this aspect and not the grandmother that was eternalized. A shudder runs through the beholder/viewer of old photographs. For they do not make visible the knowledge of the original but rather the spatial configuration of a moment; it is not the person who appears in his or her photograph, but the sum of what can be deducted from him or her” (431). What the photograph represented when it was taken has completely changed with time. When one doesn't know much about the pictures history one tends to simple compare the past with the present.
Nice work, Laura.
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