In yesterday's entry, I wrote about an anonymous picture maker and his/her over-the-top, hyper-saturated pictures of the place where I live. Also mentioned was how the pictures had little recognizable resemblance to the actual place and, despite that fact, how many online comments he/she received mentioned how much the commenters "loved that place".
This morning, as I was reading an article, How Susan Sontag Taught Me To Think, in the NYTimes Magazine, I was reminded of an idea put forth by Susan Sontag-which I had read many years ago in her book, On Photography-which has some bearing on my "questions" in yesterday's entry:
re: “the image-world,” the counterfeit reality that threatens to destroy our apprehension of the actual world.
Academics and philosophers have ventured far down a rabbit hole on a, iMo, path of arcane and obtuse writings on the subject of the image-world, none of which I would recommend. On the other hand, I would recommend the reading of Sontag's On Photography, a book of relatively easy-to-read and digest essays from which one can extract some interesting ideas about the medium of photography and its relationship to and impact upon human behavior and societal culture and art.
That written, one my rightly assume / infer that I am a resident in good standing in the "image-world". I made my living making pictures and continue to make pictures-numbering 10,000 and counting over the past 20 years-which express my vision, aka: how I see the world, 83 of which are on display in my house. In addition, the number of made-by-others pictures-online, in photo books and galleries-I view annually numbers in thousands.
That written, as much as I am immersed in the image-world, I have never, let me repeat-NEVER, considered my pictures, or any made by others, to be anything other than a representation, true to the real or imagined, of the actual world. ASIDE: my preference has always been for reasonably accurate representations of the real world. END
To be precise, my comments about the image-world are based upon my perceptions of printed pictures as objects. That is, I view my preferred type of pictures-mine and those ade by others-as real things which may represent / mimic the real world in a literal / factual sense but they are always "just" an image, aka: a representation of the external form of a person or thing in art.
Are my fact-based / straight photographs "counterfeit"? I don't think so inasmuch as they are "honest", straight forward, non-effected depictions of the real world. On the other hand, saturation-to-the-max, induced extreme contrast and don't-exist-in-nature colors-landscape picture wise-could be considered to be "dishonest" mis-representations, aka: lies / countefeit. CAVEAT: it not has been decreed that, in the making of art, lies and distortion are not legitimate to tools to use to express one's art intentions.END
Do my preferred pictures "destroy my apprehension for the actual world? Absolutely not. In fact, they enhance my apprehension thereof inasmuch as they are constant reminders to look at the real / actual world with open eyes and an open mind in order to see and comprehend that in which I am immersed.
All of that written and my dislike of counterfeit pictures aside, is there anything inherently wrong about making counterfeit pictures? iMo, I don't think so as long as they made and viewed as artistic "entertainment" .... unless, as the aforementioned anonymous picture maker did today, recommend that, based on his "counterfeit" pictures, people get in their cars and drive up to my neck of the woods because the fall colors are spectacular...
... when, in fact, the only "place" in which the fall colors are "spectacular" are in his/her manufactured image-world.
