What is photography?

Well its just the process of taking or making a photograph, right? Wrong, there are so many underlying details about photography that make it a creative practise and notions that make photography an inquired taste so to speak. Photography is a phenomenon. We all use it unintentionally, our eyes are the shutters and our minds are the batteries left charging overnight to rejuvenate in time for the morning sunrise. I do believe this is a question that shouldn’t necessarily be answered because the whole meaning of photography is to wander with your imagination; to reproduce something you once saw in your mind that now lies in front of you therefore if this question is answered, an artist may feel restricted in terms of their ability.

I don’t believe in the notion of photography being something ‘anybody can do’, if you don't believe you can take a beautiful photo or create a landscape in your mind that only you can see or if you can time a specific moment to its last second and snap it into focus at just the right moment, you don’t understand photography. There is so much bullshit concerning the fact that being a photographer “isn’t a real job” or “you won’t get anywhere in life with it” that its laughable. Look around, everything around us is photography; advertisements, logos, billboards, posters etc.  If you can't feel the emotion behind each and every image, if you can't visualise the set up of a photoshoot or cant understand the photographic settings used, then no you don't understand photography, and most importantly, if you rely on a filter to create a beautiful image rather than make your own filter, make your own image and present it in your own meaningful way, then no; you don’t, fucking, understand, photography. Photography isn't about taking an image and letting it turn to mould, its about telling a story; creating an atmosphere; raising questions; heightening emotions and most importantly bringing your imagination to reality. When the outcome of an image is unprecedented or unpredictable, thats when a picture becomes magnificent. Photography has been around since the beginning of time even when there weren’t any cameras and the only means of show casing what could be seen was through painting and engraving on walls that would later be discovered by future centuries.

For years photography was thought of as a menial, shitty “anyone can do that” kind of hobby but through trial and error and experimentation, pieces of work have been produced that help voice opinions, cure society, change opinions and turn heads. I think photography is a means of communication, it is able to voice the things that otherwise may not be able to be spoken about, may this be sensitive subjects or tough concepts to crack. Society today is very much a horrible place to be because there is an expectation to be a certain way and photography can both help and worsen this situation. Photography helps raise awareness about events that are overlooked. For example, Nick Ut’s “The Terror of War” depicts a young girl in Vietnam after her village was sprayed with napalm. Nilüfer Demir’s photograph of a drowned Syrian boy trying to escape the horrors of war. As well as Matt Black’s “Geography of Poverty”. This kind of exposure works to increase awareness of poverty in modern-America, this an excellent side of photography however this can work in the opposite way. Somebody else may look at photographs of a drowned Syrian boy and ask “did you help him?”. This can be seen in the story of “The Bang Bang Club”. Two photographers are philosophically against apartheid, but their pictures, they realised, could often be used to promote it as there pictures greatly show black people killing one another which was accepted by the apartheid government. Nevertheless, photography remains as a form of acknowledgement of greater events happening around the world and works to test the boundaries of social norms. 

Self expression is ever growing and can be seen through the evolution of art as a whole. It’s this self expression, the idea that each individual will see a vision and produce it in a different way, one that may be similar or completely opposite to another that makes defining what photography actually is so difficult because its heavily reliant on judgement and experience. Experience can be gathered through the 191 years of photographic practise by many artists with many different perspectives. Context is an important aspect of photography and this can be demonstrated though the history of photography itself. Pinning a timeline of historical images onto a wall and 

observing the changes in culture, belief, religion and race elegantly illustrates the journey photography has been through. However, its through the process of appropriation that a deeper 

meaning of photography is revealed which makes understanding photography more difficult but much easier at the same time because the limits are endless. Self expression allows the search for identity, photography allows an individual to seek out their likes and dislikes and for them to find themselves as a person similarly to any other creative practise. This permits the personality of the artist to spill onto the page and communicate ideas and perspectives in a completely different way.

I also think that photography, for me personally is an escape. It allows me to shut off from reality which sometimes isn’t always so great and delve into a place where I’m completely comfortable. There’s nothing quite like taking a picture that speaks to me on more than an intellectual level. Photography is fucking necessary.