Creating our 'own' Utopia.. what?

After attending the lecture of Bruce Gray about the history of the photographic image and reading the article "The Ontology of the Photographic Image" by André Bazin, I immediately came up with an idea for my creative assignment.

Nowadays, everyone takes pictures. Is it of your dog, your food (very popular), your house, yourself while you're sleeping (actually you're not sleeping, because you are taking the picture, you just wánt to make everyone think you're sleeping... silly you). Imagine the craziest things, people take pictures of it.

It all began with the invention of the Camera Obscura (Bazin 1960). It was the first time people saw an in illusion of an 3D-space in which things seemed to exist the same way we see them with our own eyes (Bazin). People seemed to develop an obsession with realism. Art has always been the one way to reproduce an image and make it last. Paintings could ‘capture’ a moment, but always with the interference of the creativity of mankind. With photography, this was no longer an issue. The lens captured the moment just as it was. Nothing could get closer to reality as Photography could and it seemed to satisfy the longing of gaining reality in durable objects (Bazin).

My question is: with over more than 50 years of developing, is Photography still as how André Bazin explains it? I think not.

We take pictures of every day happenings. We take pictures on any moment of the day (or night). We take pictures of everything, everywhere, on every moment. But what makes our picture, the one we took of the one particular thing, so special?

Not the ‘reality’ it expresses. We have long got used to the fact that photographs and videos capture objects in their most realistic state. It is not the urge to get as close as possible to the realistic object with our replication that we have.

It is something else we seek to achieve. We want to create our own reality, our own perfect world with our pictures. Our own Utopia. It is not the reality we are looking for in that one photograph, but we are seeking the possibilities there are to alter a picture in a way it looks more beautiful, peaceful, ‘hipster’, arty or professional.

With apps like Instagram, VSCO Cam, Afterlight and so on, it is possible for us to create an own, better (or perhaps even perfect) reality within our photos. These apps offer us the ability to put filters on the pictures to make them look arty, sunny, funnier and more professional. Adding text to them, giving them a natural ‘glow’ and choosing different frames is changing photos in a way we want them to.

But how close is this to reality any more? Is it even possible to still call it reality?

For the creators, it is a way of showing their creativity. At least, the like t believe it is. Because once you finished altering your picture, you have the possibility to ‘share’ it with your friends. On Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on. Your friends on the other hand have the ability to ‘like’ your picture.

But is it really showing your creativity? How original are you, if you use these apps with thousands, no millions of others, only to choose from a limited amount of frames, colors and filters? The question is, is it really your own utopia you’re creating, or are you just following the hype? I guess we might never know this. One person is convinced he is making his own creations, totally different from the rest, being original as he goes. The other person thinks, maybe even realizes, that he is just as the rest of us. Just taking pictures of things he likes, putting frames and filters on it to make it look more pretty.

The one thing I know for sure is that reality is not the issue here anymore. Is it not the goal with the photographs to achieve the most realistic reproduction of an object, like André Bazin once stated.

On this photo blog I want to show you how easy it is to change pictures. To make them your “own” pictures. Your “own” perfect reality. Utopia. Or is it your own?

Literature:

Bazin, Andre, and Hugh Gray. “The Ontology of the Photographic Image.” Film Quarterly 13.4 (Summer 1960): 4-9.