Chapter 7 Response

A segment that really stuck out to me in this reading was when Ritchin says, "In may in fact be time for professionals to pay more attention to how amateurs envision the world"(130). I feel like this is very important to the social photograph because too often, professional, journalistic photographers are looking through the lens with only one perspective and that is the view that all the other photographers are taking. Whenever I'm at a large event, I always see professional photographers always having the "best view possible", when really, that view isn't very realistic for the viewer of the work in it's final print. People can't always relate to the photographs that journalists take because that wasn't how they might have experienced the event themselves. In sports and political photography, the two most photographed events for photojournalists, that same, close up photograph is being taken, and I agree that it's about time for professionals to start taking more of an amateur view and to start letting go of these stereotypical shots. The photo pass won't buy you the best shot, but more like the one that everyone else wants to take. Perhaps a shot from in the crowd spectating the event from another viewer's point of view would be more interesting than the shots we see all the time.

In the set "Nuclear Nightmares" that Ritchin was highlighting on, a larger sense of pushing the boundary of the stereotypical journalistic photograph began to take a turn and make it so something moving could come from overstepping boundaries. Though this work was controversial, I feel it made a difference in showing people some realities they may not have known about. That series also made me think about how the integration of text is so incredibly important to think about in photography, and that it can completely change the viewer's reading of the work. If it weren't for the text in that series, the viewer could be left very confused and perhaps scared, but the text is more eye opening for the viewer in the way that it's used and made it so it couldn't be denied.

I also found the idea of digital photography as needing authenticity to be very interesting too. Because digital photography can be manipulated so easily, the worth and authenticity of is questioned so much more, but with project like "Nuclear Nightmares" or "Purple Hearts", the authenticity is hard to deny. People wouldn't photoshop moments like that, it's not questioned really. But if it were photoshopped, how would people judge that authenticity level? The digital moment in conjunction with authenticity is something that really captured me in this reading. The social photograph demands authenticity that's harder to deliver in this digital age.