“The photograph as it stands alone presents merely the possibility of meaning.” (Sekula in Burgin, 1982: 91) This week we have looked at Trilogy by Daniel Gustav Cramer, and I have been very much drawn into his work and the ideas behind it. For me, this body of work is very relevant to my practice and […]

“Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing “we” can do—but who is that “we”?—and nothing “they” can do either—and who are “they”?—then […]

“As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. To steel oneself against weakness. To make oneself more numb. To acknowledge the existence of the incorrigible”  (Sontag, 2005: 77) Growing up I became fascinated by war photography. It fuelled my imagination. As I became older, it showed me the reality […]

This week, one of the most striking of these images I have observed has been Israel’s first moon mission spacecraft sending back a selfie of the earth. Figure 1 This image for me summarises some interesting debates within modern photography. Firstly it was taken by a machine, remotely controlled from the earth. Never a more […]

Is photography voyeuristic? Alternatively, is the viewer themselves the voyeurist? To quote Swift: “When did it happen? That imperceptible inversion. As if the camera no longer recorded but conferred reality. As if the world were the lost property of the camera. As if the world wanted to be claimed and possessed by the camera. To […]