In My Own Image: Reflection

In the foreword and last chapter of “In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography”, author Fred Ritchin discusses and criticizes various aspects regarding the ongoing evolution of digital photography. Ritchin compares society’s older perception of photography – something accurately depicting reality – with the newer perception, where technological improvements and societal developments have allowed photos to be easily manipulated and shown in misleading manners. His phrase “fluidity of the digital” points to this, meaning the ease of which digital imagery can be altered. We can see this digital fluidity with almost all aspects regarding photography: software like Photoshop can be used to composite photos, apps have been developed to touch up photographs, photos of models and advertising are notoriously edited to attempt to portray perfection. However, like Ritchin explains, even unedited photography may not be able to completely capture reality, as the context, framing, angles, and more of a shot all change how a person can perceive the event captured in the photo. In this sense, no media can truly capture reality, because the presentation of the media will always have a bias, no matter how slight, from the creator. Of course, different forms of media can still be more or less successful at attempting to capture reality: photos themselves are likely one of the forms of media that most successfully captures reality because they convey visual information in a way that people perceive as realistic to begin with. Film can be seen as better at capturing reality; as it’s made up of multiple photos, it can encompass a wider range of time, perspective, and can be harder to subtly alter. Along with this, film can also contain audio, which provides another means of realistically conveying information. Other forms of media, like text and art like painting or drawing, may be seen as less successful in capturing reality because the information they contain is being filtered through a human first, rather than just replaying the visuals of an event. However, in general, all media’s ability to capture reality depends on the people and purpose they are used for. Photography, for all its “realism”, may be just as fallible or interpretative as any other form of media. 

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