Blog Prompt #16

“I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.” Duane Michals

I agree with this. Photographs, and any image, any work of art for that matter, should provide the viewer with a unique perspective on something. It should force you to consider the mundane in a new way. Art is about finding the unique, the unexpected, in the things we consider to be ordinary. Photography's strength comes when it is able to convey the unexpected in something we can see with our own eyes in real life. Since photos make an exact copy of something, the only way they can be art and separate themselves from simply documenting something, is to show that something in a new way--either in a new light, or a new perspective. Photography is one of those mediums where the "how" is not as obvious as the "what," and because of this, I know that I for one tend to focus more on exactly what the photo is showing, rather than the technique being used, with the "how" only a vague question in the back of my mind. For this reason, I am struck first by the image's portrayal, or perspective on the subject.

Anyone can take a photo these days. It's the photographers who can bring out something new in a subject that have found the "art" in photography, and have captured something truly provocative.