Susan Sontag photo

This resembles Susan Sontag's photo because its the idea of "A photograph is like the whole world"

Daily events we go through within our lives such as traveling and the simple idea that we cannot turn back our life which is symbolized here with the no u-turn sighn.

Questions for 2/16 on photos

. What do the photos mean to Eggleston? In most cases the photos that Eggleston has taken they have represented his life in the southern culture, His interests and memorys through out his southern life and where he used to live. Technically there is no way of knowing exactly what his photos mean, because only the person who takes the photographs can know the true meaning behind them.

2. What do they mean to you?
Through out Eggleston I have felt that he is a simple type of guy that rather take photos of objects or people that have a meaning to him even if we dont exactly know what that meaning is, in the long run I feel that he is using his interests and the simplicity of life to inspire his photography.

3. What does it mean to be a viewer of Eggleston's photos? (What does it mean to view something that you know has a personal meaning to someone else, but not know what exactly that meaning is?) It means that the photos can be interpreted by you no matter what the photographer meant by his photos. Everyone has their own meaning within what a photo represents and that exactly what gives photography such an implicit meaning and almost anyone can make their own accuasations on what a photo possibly means.

4. What makes these photos ART and not just snapshots? (why should we care?) These photos are ART because they mean something to someone. Someone put thought into what would make the photo a good picture and thought it would be important to show to other people or even other photographers, these photos are meaninngful to the person even if no one else understands why and thats the beauty of it and what makes it more than a snapshot.

Source for the History of Photography

I found a help site on the Oxford Art Online database. Its called Photography "History & Influence", this here gives a very large and detailed passage about the early stages of photography and photos taken as well. Tells us about two main systems that were used for making the first photos which are the daguerreotype and the calotype. Using these two systems Nicephore niepce and his partner produced pictures on silver coated copper plate.

The first system of making photos became more popular over time with the public than the calotype because it was more simple to use however soon became a problem because it took way too long for the photos to come out just right, expecially for portraits.
 This is only some of the facts i found about the camera back in the day and history with photography.

Possible Thesis Statement for Unit 1 Essay

Photography has always evolved throughout our history, from the existence of the pinhole camera to our daily digital cameras that you see today. Photographers all have unique ways of portraying a photo; often times these photos consist of hidden meaning within them that only the photographer knows because they know why they took that particular photo.  In many cases the photographer takes photos of sceneries and objects that have a close meaning to their hearts. William Eggleston’s uses the technique of taking photos of sceneries he is interested in throughout his book showing photos that symbolize his life in the South.

Thesis Statements

1.) Simple yet with deep meaning to the photos of many photographers where they use different colors and and objects to incorporate a meaningful setting. Photos eventhough look so simple are usually not, instead they are actually harder to understand and have more meaning  that represents them. Photos can seem very simplistic with little detail of what they mean, but thats the beauty of photography because you can incorporate your own meaning. Egglestons photos seem very random and seem like they contain little meaning, however they pocess emotions within his photos that give them more unique detail that only he understands and knows the full understanding of why he captured that photo.

2.) Everyone has their own perspective of what a photo could possible mean, every individual has their own ideas of what a photo means and represent. Many photographers like Sontag beleive that photos are what shapes our lives, through our culture and daily every day tasks we involve ourselves in. Photos usually pocess lots of meaning and emotions within the setting of what is being portrayed. Everyone has always taken or wanted to take a photo of a vacation that was unforgetable to showcase in a photo ablum for memories that they want to look back on some day. Even portraits of family members that we portray in a photo because we want to remember them through out our lives. These may seem like they consist little meaning toward a complete stranger but to the photographer they consist of memories and emotions that were experienced.

3.) Through history many items have become popular within our every day lives, whether it is a cell phone with text messaging or a simple digital camera to capture our most precious memories where we felt emotional about something we wanted to capture to look back on through our life.Taking photos has become a daily hobby through out lives of individuals to better capture memories that are meaningful to us.

Susan Sontag vs. William Eggleston

Susan Sontag is along the same lines as William Eggleston with the fact that the photopgraphy is about interests in life and life itself. Sontag tells us that taking photos back in the day was not a profession but more of a hobby that individuals could take up. Through out the years of photogrpahy it increased into a profession where you could then make money off it and use it as a career. Eggleston makes it clear to us that he takes photos of objects or places that interest him and influence his life in some way. Sontag also beleives just like Eggleston that taking a picture is  like a peice of the world and it represents the reality of life. Sontag states in her essay that "photographs became part of the general furniture of the environment" (Sontag 2). Susan Sontag beleives that photos represents the life we live in and we take photos to keep our selves busy.

Eliot Porters photography

Eliot Porter was born in 1901 and took up a career as a biochemical researcher at Harvard. But he could never quite let go of his love of photography. he receieved support from his brother. In 1938 Stieglitz offered to exhibit some of these black-and-white photographs that Porter took, along with several images that Porter made on an excursion to Austria, at his important New York City gallery.  Over much of Porter’s career, black-and-white photography continued to set the artistic standard, and he had to fight his colleagues’ prejudices against the medium. But in 1962 he gained a major boost when the Sierra Club published "In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World." That immensely popular book, combining his evocative color photographs of New England woods with excerpts from the writings of Henry David Thoreau, revolutionized photographic book publishing by setting new standards for design and printing and proving the commercial viability of fine art photography books. Its success set Porter on a lifelong path of creating similar photographic portraits of a wide variety of ecologically significant places the world over.                   http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/porter/about.php

This photo is taken by Eliot Porter, it shows his creativity of how he poses photos with shadows, color and sharpness. You can see the riples through the water and the sun setting over the mountains giving this photo of a lake the many colors you see. Looking at this photo it makes you feel as if you are there because its very centered and focused. This is just one of the many landscape photos. Eliot's specialty is landscape photography with bright colors and targeting natures beauty.

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