I found the part about photographs to be referenced as "mirrors" and "windows" to be very interesting in the sense that I struggle between the two as a photographer. I feel, as a photographer, that my input matters to the photograph and that in some ways, the photographs should be about me as a photographer, as a mirror. In other ways, I feel my photographs should focus on the subject matter, or the "window". As artists in the frame, we have to think so often about both of these reflective surfaces and find a way to balance the two out in a way that works towards our concepts, and challenges the viewer's perspective at the same time. I feel this outlines a prime difference between tourists & artists in terms of photography, or the documentary vs. the art photograph. They both mean different things, but are they both still considered art?
I also found the notion of the mosaic to be very compelling as well, because it shows this interplay of the photograph as a technology, and being inserted into this alternate reality that goes where the artist decides its going to go. Through putting our photographs in this mosaic format & altering their appearance through the use of the rectangle, is it still going to be considered traditional? In having the mosaic become part of this dynamic media, as Ritchin describes, we are transfixing the meaning without even realizing it. It's comparable to how print photographs speak different languages than digitally shown photographs do. In putting a series of photographs in a mosaic and forcing them to be together-we are changing the meaning, we are making it become something else. This also relates to Ritchin's notion of how photographs are half truths, and putting photographs in mosaic form does indeed keep relating to the fact that mosaics can be considered half truths. Through combining more than one photograph in a rectangle, we are creating an alternate truth for the viewer to absorb- a half truth that may not exist otherwise.
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