Pixiq

“The wish to capture evanescent reflections is not only impossible, as has been shown by thorough German investigation, but the mere desire alone, the will to do so, is blasphemy. God created man in His own image, and no man-made machine may fix the image of God.” German publication Leipziger Stadtanzeiger – 1839

This was stated in the response to the first public announcement of the invention of a successful photographic process.

Consider that photography is a young invention. Of all the 19th century inventions – the electric lamp, the safety pin, dynamite, and the automobile, the invention of photography has undoubtedly created the most astonishment and delight.

With the advent of digital photography and the world access of Internet it can certainly be said that most people take photography for granted. Photography gradually took over what previously had been one of the main functions of art – the recording of factual visual and historical information.

This is not to say that art is dead, only that it has evolved.

Photographs recorded images that the unaided eye could not see and social miseries that the eye did not want to see. That is to say, that photography changed that way that the average person viewed time and events in the present as well as the past.

Slowly photography began to function as art in its own right.

We’re not going to go into the technical aspects of how photography came to be, but rather I want you to think about how the history of a visual aesthetics revolution has affected the way that we function today.

Photographs are used in every aspect of our lives. We see them everywhere, most notably in advertisements. We use photographs as visual stimuli to produce effects on our psyche in order to transport our souls to other places. How many screensavers, calendars, wall portraits, slideshows, etc, do we use as some sort of escapism in our ever hectic lives.

Pause to think. It’s good for the soul. Stop and smell the roses? Nay, stop and shoot them I say!

Photographs are memories of times past; places visited, and loved ones lost. Remember them. Remember them.

Every year, around this time, I look through my collection of images and I count all of my blessings, remember my friends and family, breathe in the places I visited, and bask in the safety blanket of secured memories that will allow me to tell the history of myself to my children. Photography and history collide today and in the future.

What does the history of your photography say? Does it say enough?