For our first reading in Visual Arts 1, we were given an excerpt, titled “The Photograph”, from Vilém Flusser’s Towards a Philosophy of Photography.

Vilém Flusser’s “The Photograph” relates a fascinating view on the complex and deceptive nature of photography. His philosophical perspective, which primarily focuses on the element of color to guide his argument, discusses the importance of recognizing the different variables (the photographer, the camera, the image, the photograph, the viewer) that interact during the production of a photograph. He presents each of these elements with their own personal intentions and dramatically close effects on one another’s behavior, purpose, and quality of existence.

Many of Flusser’s build-ups of theories enthralled my mind with new and complex ideas concerning photography. One point that truly entranced my thinking as I read is when he states that black and white photographs do not display an image of reality; rather, they display, as Flusser states, “the magic of theoretical thought”. Before this statement, he discussed the history of the human belief of light and dark cosmic forces and how black and white ideas cannot exist in the real, visual world but rather in real, conceptual thought. This link between philosophical understanding and the stark appearance of black and white photographs made me appreciate the idea of black and white photography even more; I began to understand Flusser’s translation of visual into conceptual thoughts and beliefs.

Flusser then transitions to argue that colored photographs may even be more misleading of the world than those in black and white. When adding color, the photographer adds many more possibilities for trickery, as Flusser states that colors in photographs are but, “transcoded concepts that claim to have been reflected automatically from the world onto the surface”. If color does not truly exist in the world (if it is simply translations of light), then how can we rely on a camera to produce real color as well? (Those as well as a few other questions sprawled around in my head as I read this portion). What I came to conclude for the most part is that we cannot read photographs as if they are reality, but rather as joint expressions of technology, science, art, and humanity. Each illusion of color acts as a mere symbol, and “every symbol is just the tip of an iceberg in the ocean of cultural consensus”. What I began to understand is that photography can be viewed so much deeper than as just the ability to capture a snapshot of the world; there are many interactions, some obvious and some obscure, beneath the surface.

From here, he treats the camera as a being, with its own objectives and threats against the photographer’s goals and potential. His statements of the camera’s connecting objectives and the photographer’s connecting objectives made me view the process in a new light. An observer and critic must distinctively recognize the relationships between the photographer, the camera, society, and the future in order to truly understand the significance of a photograph. The best photographs, he notes, are when the “human spirit wins” against the camera’s main and monotonous function to photograph and be improved upon by humans to capture a clearer “reality” (which cannot truly exist and distracts from the beauty of photography and the artist’s vision). Human creativity and understanding must shine through the drudges of the camera.

Although at times I became confused and a little lost within the many concepts developed within Flusser’s “The Photograph”, his presentation of these multifaceted ideas caused me to question the reality of color, the factors one must consider when analyzing a photograph, the relationship between an artist and his/her medium, and, most significantly, the artist’s true purpose as he/she faces the challenges ingrained into the creation of a successful piece. I began to understand that Flusser’s unnerving and mesmerizing ideas call everyone to constantly observe critically and create passionately, as if we are all fighting an ongoing battle not against machine or medium, but against ourselves and the mediocrity that arises when we do not actively pursue a deeper understanding of the creative process.