barthes

The Winter Garden Photograph and the Nine-Hundred Dollar iPhone Photo

Image credit (from left to right): theuglyvolvo.com and the-space-in-between.com

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and tonight is the first night of Chanukah, holidays which, for most, are all about being with family. Even in the absence of family–whether you’re making phone calls, or talking on Skype—there’s no escaping the nostalgia of the holiday season. The farther one’s family members migrate for school or career, the more important it becomes to make the pilgrimage back to that original “place” that the family once was. Maybe Austin’s recent cold snap has me in a sentimental mood, but as the Thanksgiving and Chanukah double-hitter arrives this week, the main purpose of the holidays seems to be to create an emotional snapshot of how things were, but won’t ever be again.

Humanism and Global Portraiture: From Steichen’s Family of Man to Galimberte’s Toy Stories

Image Credit: Boredpanda.com

I’ve been seeing a growing trend on the internet for the past year or so: sites like Buzzfeed and Bored Panda advertising series like Gabriele Galimberte’s Toy Stories a.k.a. “Children from Around the World with Their Favorite Toys,” or, another popular one, “Families from around the World with a Month’s Worth of Food.” What is the source of our cultural compulsion to view these massive collections of human possessions? Moreover, why do we like to see all of the peoples of every nation juxtaposed alongside one another? Visual Rhetoric is not only the study of individual signs, images, and symbols, but also of the messages that images impart as a collective. In the era of the internet list and the online photo gallery, images are often presented in groups to form a broader thesis. So what exactly is the thesis behind these “People from around the World Holding X” or “Doing Y”?

In looking at these catalogues of humanity writ large, I’m reminded of an exhibit which made its debut long before the era of viral internet photo collections: Edward Steichen’s The Family of Man.

New Theory Page: Roland Barthes on photography

 

cover of camera lucida

I recently posted a new page to the theory section of viz. that explores the photographic theory of Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida.

Roland Barthes on Photography

Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography  trans.  Richard Howard (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981).

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