all pictures ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone
AN ASIDE: HAD PROMISED A FEW ENTRIES AGO that my next entry would be about why I make photo books. That didn't happen and this entry continues down along that broken promise path. I'm thinking maybe the next entry is it. END OF ASIDE
ONE OF THE THINGS ABOUT THE MEDIUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND ITS APARATUS that I have been wondering about is, who the hell is to blame for the use of the medium and its aparatus, primarily in the fine art world, as a psuedo-psychoanalytical instrument for narcistic navel gazing and intellectual masturbatory "investigations" of societal / cultural phenomena? Or, when did a photograph cease to be a thing to be "simply" looked at and "enjoyed" for its visual / referent(ial) appeal? When did a photograph become a thing to be "understood"?
And, by extension, is a person who values the medium and it aparatus, both for its picture making capabilities and the viewing of the results thereof, for its visual manifestations rather than its intellectualization constructs guilty of being a simpleton?
Just wondering.