Aneirin
Posts: 6121
Joined: 3/18/2006 From: Tamaris Status: offline
|
In the course of my studies, I am having to research the role of iconic imagery as it applies to the genre of war photography, right back from it's start with the American Civil war, right through to the present conflicts in the Middle East, and how that imagery was/is used to advance political thought. In the course of my research, I am discovering with the present conflicts the role of the camera phone is changing the accepted image of war, as no longer are we seeing sanitised releases via government publicity, but we are also seeing the private snaps taken by those in the situation, Abu Ghraib for example, images which do much to undo the accepted public feeling. But what I am also beginning to understand is although we are highly capable of recording light, creating vast collections, millions upon millions of snaps in time, we are actually shaping our future, because whatever image that becomes iconic has a lasting impression on the future and with that I now perhaps understand why it is those whom the West are fighting against in the current situations in Both Iraq and Afghanistan are taken by the people of those regions to include them, the so called crusade Bush mouthed for they also have access to war photography from both the established war photographer and the man on the ground with his camera phone. We interpret what we like, they interpret what they like, we seek the political, they seek the political, we use imagery, they use imagery and it all comes down to the fact that the eventual viewer does not know what led up to the moment in time the image was taken, thus proving imagery is still in a sense manipulated and what we see might not be the whole truth of the matter and based on that a future can be decided at least for that viewer. The more the viewers and the correct words applied shapes thought and there action and many things can then happen all them good, bad and lying in wait for the future, the correct time when that image will explode like a timebomb. So, after all that could it be that although we are highly capable of recording a snap in time, are we equipped to deal with what we see, Do we know what we are doing when we press that shutter release, turn on that photo cell, do we consider the consequences of our thought turned to action ? The media are in it to make money, the government is in it to garner support, but what is the man on the ground with his camera phone in it for, what does he represent ? If we tend to remember events as still images in our mind, the still photographic image feeds directly into that.
_____________________________
Everything we are is the result of what we have thought, the mind is everything, what we think, we become - Guatama Buddha Conservatism is distrust of people tempered by fear - William Gladstone
|