Wolf Kettler Photographer | Blog

OR THE TROUBLE WITH REALITY

I wrote this essay in March 2006 for a Philosophy of Art course at the University of Bath.

The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms (edition 2003) defines realism as Art that aims to reproduce reality exactly. There is no entry for reality.

Introduction

Photography is the process of making images by recording light onto a sensitive medium through a timed exposure: Light falls onto a sensitised piece of material, causes a reaction and leaves its traces in the form of a visual memory. This process is initiated through mechanical devices – with or without electronic aids – and carried out through chemical or digital (electronic) processes.

“The word [photography] comes from the Greek words phos (light), and graphis (stylus, paintbrush) or graphê, together meaning drawing with light or representation by means of lines or drawing. Traditionally, the product of photography has been called a photograph. In digital photography, the term image has begun to replace photograph.” (wikipedia.org, 2006).

It is generally believed that the first permanent photograph was created in 1825/27 by the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. The photograph was a landscape that required eight hours of exposure.

When photography was first invented, it was seen as a replacement for painting, much like digital imaging today is perceived to be a replacement for photography. In the early days of photography, many photographers came from a background in painting. Many digital image makers today are photographers. Today, painting and photography are two distinct disciplines, neither having replaced the other, each existing in their own spaces. This process has yet to be completed with photography and digital imaging.

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An analogue, or traditional, photograph is created by the reaction of light with a piece of light-sensitive material (film), made visible through a chemical process. The result is a usually permanent negative or positive, which is visible to the human eye simply by holding it against the light.

A digital image is also created by the reaction of light with a piece of light-sensitive material. In this case, the light-sensitive medium is an image sensor, which reports the captured image to a computer processor. The result is a sequence of electromagnetic impulses, which are stored in the computer’s memory and can be written to a magnetic medium.

Crucially, the digital image is not permanent and requires an additional technological process and computer hardware to be made visible. It can be wiped without leaving any traces.

On a philosophical level, this creates a problem:

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Photographs are not created in an instant. They are the result of a number of activities – constructing the scene, composition (framing), arranging the lighting, setting the exposure and pressing the shutter release button, not to mention the various tasks that need to be performed after the actual exposure.

The photographer has a choice in each of these steps. He decides what is real at the moment of performance. He decides what his message is and how it is to be communicated.

This reality may differ from the reality, when the finished photograph is viewed.

When I first set out to use photography as a way of expressing myself, reality was an important issue. I wanted my photographs to be authentic and not altered in any way.

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