| Abstract [eng] |
In my Master’s thesis \"Taking Pictures of the Photographer: the (In)visible Frames”, the theory was inspired by practical work: my series of photographs called \"Photographers\". Myself a photographer, I’ve always loved to take pictures of other representatives of this craft in their work. So I have noticed that these people are often taking particular positions, and along with them, their inner states of being are also changing (as in the one who is taken picture of, too). The common perception is that it is the photographer who influences his/her \"victim\" – for example, by telling you to sit down and smile. When I heard about the existence of the specific phenomenon in quantum physics, where the existence of the observer can influence the outcome of the experiment, I thought that in photography, the one being observed can influence the one behind the camera – for instance, kneel and wait for a long while, feverishly pushing the button with one’s finger. In this case, the actual result of this “photographic experiment”, the picture, also influences the one who has been shot and the one who presses the button. Separately, in my work I also discuss the single occasion when these two functions are performed by the same person: namely, the \"production\" of a selfie. In my work, I associate the visual sterility of a photographic image, especially digital one, the special “tuning” effects done with the help of programs like Photoshop, as well as all the fashion for taking pictures (also of oneself), intertwined with the social norm to look \"nice\" on the picture (even where they don’t resemble your looks), with the tradition that was practiced in the USA in the period from the late 19th to early 20th century. According to this tradition, along with the usual funeral and post-mortem photos, the people who had passed away were photographed \"as the living\". The use of special effects in contemporary digital photography, in this aspect, reminds me of the flowers and candles that were used to decorate the deceased, in order to conceal the fact that the latter has been dead for some time. So the author of a selfie reminds me of a suicider, who, in addition, uploads the results to any social network, where they will be immediately evaluated, or to the hard disk, where they are likely to be never seen by anyone again. In terms of posture, I have noticed that even the external photographers’ attributes – the camera bag, clothing, a certain “professional” behavior – give a number of certain “advantages” both to teenagers, who are particularly sensitive to social pressure, and to the rest of society. \"Hipsters\" get more favor in their environment if they smarten themselves with \"vintage\" camera bags, while a statistical 30-year-old white person, in the daylight, feels free to kneel, lie down, move around his/her hands, and so on, if only s/he has a camera. So we can talk about the power of image, which Victor Pelevin has described in a great detail in his novel \"Generation P\": in his book, a government visualized by computers is ruling a whole nation. I dare say that in contemporary society, often we are disappointed with life due to the fact that it has been invaded by life-unfriendly rules of the world, determined by the geometry of the photographic image. Even in our daily life, we are often governed by the photographic shot, which my Master’s thesis analyzes not only as the frame, but also as a pose and a border (limit). |
