We all know that photos are indexes of something else, otherwise they would not be photos but digital pictures. Yet the scope and choices in how we represent things are almost endless as options present themselves right through the workflow. Take today’s photo for the day.
Here is the same item shot differently.
The differences between the way the lamp is re-presented are manifold: in the first image I used a 45mm macro lens, in the second 28mm (35mm equivalents); in the first I used an F/9 aperture (F/22 came out too soft) in the second an F/2.2, in the first no flash was used and it was in the second, the lamp was on in the first shot and off in the second …and the list goes on…
So what’s the point? Well both are objective and subjective, both are traces of reality represented, both are scientific indexes and artistic interpretations. Yet my preference is for the first image. The choices I made have emphasised shape and tone and excluded information not relevant to the task of representing the nature of the this light bulb. Indeed looking at the image in this way one could argue is offers a better index of the lamp than the second image because it reveals aspects of its nature in an unusual way. This is just what a lot of the New Realists aimed at.
But does the photo present anything I want to say? I will answer this at the end of the month.
anomiepete 