Is there a Relationship between Photography and Ghosts - Essay Example

THEORIES/DEBATES ON PHOTOJOURNALISM AND /OR VISUAL CULTURE: IS THERE A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHOTOGRAPHY AND GHOSTS? Name Institution Course Tutor Date Theories/Debates on Photojournalism And /Or Visual Culture: Is There A Relationship Between Photography And Ghosts? Introduction The essay explores visual culture in regards to content of photography, and evolution of medium through which photography is presented. Specifically, the subject ghosts in photography and photojournalism theories are explored. The paper establishes whether there is a relationship between photography and ghosts. Photography is applied in photojournalism which can be described as a photographic language that produces a defined formal and ethical framing of the world events. Photojournalism is valued for its ability to uncover unseen facts about the social and artistic world. Photography manifests itself in a simultaneous and instantaneous thorough organization of visually perceived shapes that signify and express a fact (Wheeler 2002). The media through which photography is presented evolves and influences how photography is perceived and analyzed and helps recall the past and imagine the future (Barthes 1984). The essay samples some images found on the online digital exhibition gallery-ZoneZero for illustrating the depiction of visual culture in the modern world. The essay draws analysis from theories and, or, debates on evolution of photojournalism and visual culture. Ghosts in Photography At the first mention, it is imaginative to think ghosts can be captured in camera. However, the relationship between photography and ghosts has been explored in both classic and contemporary imaging that enabled ghostly phenomenon to be observed in photographs. This relationship is as old as the nineteenth and early twentieth century when popular belief and scientific fraud were blended (McCullin 1994). Earlier, the lack of intellectual sophistication in the public, yet an age of deeply rooted religious values and popularly accepted belief that the camera recorded the truth was viewed by the media as a way to exploit the mass for financial gain. During the classic times, photographs were created through long exposure times and this caused the mobile objects to diminish and depict the world as a pose of unmoving objects and solitary spaces (Barthes 1984). However, the living, mobile components of these spaces became a sequel of obscured and fading images. A growing interest in spiritualism was experienced in the 19th century and photography was used as a tool to explore this concept. In this case, photographs were utilized to capture the proof of an invisible reality. Spirit/ghost photographers, as they were called, faced challenges of being exposed as unreal, and were ridiculed in the press (Barthes 1984). As much as the images of these photographers were depicted as two-sided, it was extremely difficult to comprehend the exact way they had come up with the work. The media ridicule did not stop the use of photography to explore the culture of spirituality. In any case, the relationship between spiritual culture and photography has been enhanced through visual technology in the modern days (Warner 2006). It is difficult to shoot photos that will have the ghostly experience, but the modern skills and expertise in the visual technology has made this possible. In the modern age, digital photography has also been used to bring out ghostly phenomenon in photos. Images of ghosts can be created from any settings, and these don’t necessarily need to be old haunted buildings or cemeteries. Ghosts can be captured from anywhere in any form or another with good concentration and skills. Arguably, digital cameras are great at hunting ghosts and hence ideal for ghost photographers (Warner 2006). The photographer is able to view the results immediately and even call for another photo shoot instantaneously as no film is required. A memory card is all that is needed for storage of the images for later previews. Anomalies captured by digital cameras are easily followed as opposed to those captured by the analog ones. However, the absence of negatives in digital cameras makes it difficult to prove that the photos are not enhanced. Especially, many critics have questioned the ability of digital cameras to capture ghosts considering that there is high ability of capturing anomalous orbic images that can be misinterpreted as being ghosts (Breault 1995). In linking photography to ghosts, an analyst makes sense of photography as relic (Barthes 1984). Photography is used as a continuation of a desire to see the dead again, but also attest to death itself. The ‘return of the dead’ is a very compelling aspect of a photograph that can be achieved through spirit photography. Whereas a photograph revives memory, brings illusion, and represents reality, the depiction of ghosts in photography oozes a past reality, although it is a reality that can no longer be touched. The employment of photography to capture ghosts continues, binding the association between photography and the supernatural (Barthes 1984). This can be described as a reality beyond the visible. In ghost photography, there is a desire either to bring forth an image not created by human hands or revive the dead to life. The latter affirms the perpetual presence of members that have been lost. According to McCullin (1994) photography is not looking but feeling. Thus, if individuals cannot feel what they are looking at, then they will be unable to get others to view their pictures. In the book Ghostly Matters, Gordon (1997) compiles the photography works depicting the art of making ghosts. The narration shows a relationship between photography and ghosts in regards to overwhelming strange presence that the viewer gets from looking at the photos. A spectacular example is the work of Gary Simmons in which chalk is rubbed in the wall to depict an imaginary universe with stars, and other heavenly bodies. Gordon (1997) describes the overwhelming yet strangely insubstantial feeling the pictures generated. The photo gives a feeling of both beauty and haunting trouble, of a ballroom and an elegant throne, but also a staircase leading to a dance of a hanging rope. Gordon (1997) describes the feeling as entering in a ghost chamber and seeing things that ordinarily seem absent, and would cause a non-understanding person to label him as a lunatic if he shouted “ghosts in the house”. Barthes (1984) asserts that photography of ghosts affirms a “this has been”, thus photography conserves the ubiquity of people as souvenirs. However, it also attests the presence of death as something ‘gone’. McCullin (1994) insists on the use of photography to associate with real humanity, real feelings and real memories. Memories of ghosts of traumatic events The visual construction of traumatic events through photography and art is an intrinsic element of human propensity to have memory and work through trauma (Zelizer 2000). The memories of these past events are the ghosts that come back to haunt and leave the people with a vivid imagery of possible incidences during such events. The assembling of images, their display, and the invitation to gaze are conciliated through social, historical, cultural, political, and aesthetic processes (Warner 2006). In Sleeping with Ghosts McCullin (1994) depicts the horrific situation of human suffering in the world. In one photograph, McCullin uses the photograph of elephants bathing at dawn while people watch beside the riverbank. The landscape is not all gloom and a ray of sunlight reflects in the horizon. Humans may be taken over by events too big for them to deal with but there is always a hope in the future. Photojournalism creates and uses images in order to narrate a news item story. Photojournalists establish images that contribute to the news media. The photographs depict the components of timeliness, objectivity, and narrative. The remembrance of the Holocaust is accentuated through the ethereal relationship between visual culture, memory, and trauma. Boltanski and Attie (1996) have used found photographs and film projections of archival materials to bring to life a presumed absent historical subject with an amnesiac current urban. The Holocaust history with tales of deportation, emigration, exile, and extermination is brought to the present as ghostly memento. The post-Holocaust photography work is one of the contributions in impossible images of contemporary visual art and literatures that attempt to deliberate and theorize how one depicts the unthinkable. Most literatures address similar questions on how the past is remembered, and the essayists united by their focus on the visual unfolding of the Holocaust, various genocides responses, and construction of the narratives. In their text, Boltanski and Attie (1996) encourage models for the essayists to work both with, and against one another in order to stimulate dialogue. Zelizer (2000) reveals the unique importance of the photographs taken at the freeing of the concentration camps in Germany after the Second World War. In her work Zelizer (2000) shows how the images have become the basis of people’s memory of the Holocaust event, and how these photographs have affected the people’s presentations and views of modern history’s subsequent histories. More than sixty photographs have been used in an impressive way providing in-depth understanding. Thus, photography represents a fresh look as a basic component of journalistic reporting in the course if camps liberation by the Western Allies. In addition to being a compelling chronicle of the unforgettable photographs, it is also a fascinating study of how collective memory is forged and altered. Visual Culture Evolution The relationship between ghosts and photography can be used to imply the historical and social relations of humans, as well as how visual culture has developed in these historical events. Sassoon (2004) defines a photograph is a multilayered laminated material in which meaning is formed from a symbiotic association between materiality, context, and content. Thus, the materiality of the photograph, concept of the original photograph and the origin of the photographic medium are the focus of several photography debates. According to Lister (2007) the relationship between culture and technology was highly debated in the 1990s with a focus on whether digital technologies symbolized the death or extreme displacement of photography. The issue of cultural continuity of photography was based on a rejection of an overwhelming form of technological determinism. However, it is now transparent that far from being displaced to the cultural margins, photography is now more abundant than ever (Sassoon 2004). Digital technology and new media of communication have shifted from simply a basis of reality and experience to a state of simulation where the depicted object does not bear any relation to any realty whatsoever, and hence the ability to ‘capture’ what seem like ‘ghostly’ images. Benjamin (1999) observes from a Marxist perspective by asserting that the technically reproduced image use-value is enhanced by photography and cinema’s mass attainability. The modern user has a variety of mediums to navigate through as a result of the mass-mediated digital culture in which technology is readily accessible. Sassoon (2004) asserts on the importance of understanding the work processes in the decoding from the material to the digital form to alter the nature and experience of seeing photographs in controversial ways. Whereas Barthes (1984) explored the welcome of photography and emphasized on the felt experience of images rather than analysis of their significance, Lister (2009) argues that the variations between analog and digital photography no longer hold up importance. This is due to the ability of digital technology to imitate and stimulate photography in a way that makes images to share the traditional pictorial values of photography. ZoneZero: The digital gallery The representation of photography in modern visual culture has been exploited in online galleries that are dedicated to digital exploration. A unique example is ZoneZero, which is an online site dedicated to image making and photography. ZoneZero is an active participant of the advancing digital revolution. According to the founding member and the editor of the site-Pedro Meyer (2009), ZoneZero paved way for accepting that viewing photography on the screen of a computer is a legitimate endeavour. ZoneZero is home to mainstream virtual communities that have submitted photography and image-related works exploring social and cultural themes, which have been used to describe ghostly themes even in analogue techniques. Considering that this digital platform holds a strong objective to maintain intelligent photography and retain image making as a central activity for creative and cultural expressions, it was found necessary to select some pieces that depict the modern visual culture and the meaning that can be derived from the photographic objects (Meyer 2009). In the piece Ghost Ships, John Will, a Canadian photographer talks about how printed photos that stayed in his drawer for eighteen years later helped into the probe of murder victims that had boarded a Yokohama ship in the 1970s (ZoneZero 2012). The information about the murders and the ship had been media news sometimes back, only for Will to discover that they hold cues to the incident and hence turned him into an amateur detective. This piece is important as it confirms that the camera brings new appearances that were formerly impossible to see by the human eye-hence a ghostly experience (Wheeler 2002). The element of photojournalism has also been well illustrated as the sunken ship and the murders were part of news media item. The picture has presented a component of timeliness, in that the images have meaning in the context of a recently reported record of events. The picture also depicts the component of objectivity in that the situation implied by the image is a fair and accurate manifestation of the events that they depict in both tone and content. Finally, the picture represents the component of narrative, in that the image combines with other news items to make facts that can be related to the viewer on a cultural level (Warner 2006). With technology, images can be reproduced and wander across the world. This, the visible world no longer has a single focal point as the human eye is dissolved, broadened, and eternally altered by the mechanical, or technological eye. Through this process, the way individuals observe the visible world and construct meaning, or make sense of reality also changes (Wheeler 2002). The second piece is Nostalgia for Atlantis was presented in the late 1990s when analogue and digital forms had entered the era of the hybrid. The piece is by Yannis Konstantinou and reveals what seems like a broken map filled in bold grills. It is like viewing a combination of sand, water and grass and brings out the element of the realistic fantasy of utopia. This way, photography has been used to explore the concept of wide imagination that very photographer must strive to delimit while establishing ghostly matters in photography. The third piece is an interesting piece by Clement Chroux that has an image of an open eye in lighted space. Clement addresses the concept of mistakes in photography that takes place at two levels. First, photographers may errors in their work, and second, these errors may be re-used by photo historians. The concern in the subject is that the way photographers make mistakes in the production of their work or during the interpretation process presents the unconscious quality of photography (ZoneZero 2012). This can be illustrated in the attempt to photograph dreams, ghosts, or other immaterial images especially in the 19th century where technical eras were less understood yet the religious and spiritual faith were deeply rooted. Although visual culture functions as a memory archive, it has been equally criticized as a representation of inadequacy where limits are introduced through allowance sections, access, and what is visible, or invisible to the naked human eye (Wheeler 2002). Nevertheless, the integration of visual culture into the individuals’ contemporary consciousness through electronic technologies emerged into everyday lives pushes the visual into an everyday stadium where images work through both individual imagination and collective symbolism. In conclusion, the visual culture enables to check historical imagination although it can influence and distort memory as well as remove the suffering from its context. This has been seen from the different perspectives that essayists have put across after observing images from the Holocaust camps. Nevertheless, photography can be used as relic in which images of dead bodies are brought to life. Through digitalized media, various contexts can be captured by use of photography, and some photographers have established the element of ghost capturing. Photographs with ghostly matters have a haunting effect to a person aware of this art. It is amazing how photographers can use visual art to address matters of power, and resistance in creative medium. Making the ‘absence’ figures of ghosts in photographs has been used to negotiate between the static vocabulary of gender, race, class stereotype and the invisibility of the human history dimension in the objects created. List of References: Barthes, R. 1984. Camera Lucida, London: Flamingo. Breault, R. P. 1995. Control of stray light. In Handbook of Optics Vol. 1, Ch. 38., London: McGraw-Hill Benjamin, W. 1999. ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’, in Illuminations, German: Pimlico. Boltanski, C. and Attie, S. 1996. Post-Holocaust photography and social memory: Class Lecture: Photography and Ghosts. Gordon, A. 1999. ‘Making pictures of ghosts: The art of Gary Simmons’, Social Identities, vol. 5, Is. 1 Lister, M. 2007. ‘A sack in the sand: Photography in the age of information’, Convergence, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 251-273. Lister, M. 2009. 'Photography in the age of digital reproduction' in Photography a Critical Introduction, by L. Wells (ed), (pp.311-344). London: Routledge McCullin, D. 1994. Sleeping with ghosts: A life’s work in photography, London: Jonathan Cape. Meyer, P. 2009. ZoneZero editorial. Accessed from http://www.zonezero.com/editorial/editorial.html [April 24, 2012] Sassoon, J. 2004. ‘Photography materiality in the age of digital reproduction’ ' in E. Edwards & J. Hart eds. Photographs, Objects, Histories, London: Routledge. Warner, M. 2006. Photography: A cultural history, 2nd edition, London: Laurence King. Wheeler, T. 2002. Phototruth or photofiction? Ethics and media imagery in the digital age London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Zelizer, B. 2000. Remembering to forget: Holocaust photography through the camera’s eye, University of Chicago Press. ZoneZero.2012. Galleries. Accessed from http://www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/image.html [April 24, 2012]. Read More