What is a photograph?
American photographer John Szarkowski proposed that photographs can be categorized in 5 groups. These characteristics are the thing itself, the detail, the frame, time, and vantage point.
Photographs deal with what is actually there — the thing itself. What is shown in the photo is the purpose of the photo.
Photographs record the facts of things — the detail. Recorded in the photo, captured in detail.
Photographs are selected in space, not made up — the frame. Whether staged or captured organically, photos are selected by the photographer, a reflection of what the photographer envisions.
Photographs record specific moments — time. Photographs record things that are single moments in time, either never to happen again, or mundane and common.
Photographs can show a new view point of the world — vantage point. Photographs can show new vantage points, or show us things we might see every day in a new light.
What is a photograph?
If you had to create a photograph without using the things one normally uses to create a photograph, what would you do? I personally, got stuck on the idea of framing photos, like choosing what to include in the photograph, not like hanging it on the wall framing. So I started by taking an empty frame, and put plastic wrap on it. It was awful, I don't think it conveyed what I was looking for. So then, holding a wad of saran wrap, I thought more about how photos record things. Records the details of something, the moment in time, records the whimsy of what the photographer is aiming at. So why not wrap a stem of leaves in saran wrap. ‘Preserving’ the details of the leaves, the greens and the reds of the stem, the rough edges of each leaf. There's art in the simplicity of a single stem, there's record of the details, I stole it out of a bouquet on my table, but if I knew what it was, it keeps the identity of it.
This photo acts are more of a window type of photograph, capturing what is, and less of what the photographer is.
