There is really beautiful sky that you want share with someone who is not there
with you in that moment. There are special moments in your life with your
friends or family, which you want keep in your heart forever. There are people
you cannot meet easily because of the distance, and you hope to have something
that remains in your hand to not forget them. Unfortunately, it is really easy
for human beings to forget. The memory is like sand to slop through your
fingers, no matter how hard you try to keep it. And you hope, if there is
something that can stop the sand to runs down.
When you feel like that, what are you going to do? Most of people will take a
photo, cut out an instant in a shape in order to keep it in their heart
forever.
However, what is photograph? We use picture to describe both “photographs” and
“drawings”. When we say “take a picture”, is this completely same as “take a
photo”? In the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the word picture means “a
painting or drawing, etc. that shows a scene, a person or thing”, “a
description that gives you an idea in your mind of what something is like” or
“a photograph”. However, the word photograph means “a picture that is made by
using a camera that has a film sensitive to light inside it” and photography
means “the art, process or job of taking photographs or filming something”.[i] So, at least according to Oxford, “photograph” is a part
of “picture”. Moreover, the difference between photographs (photography) and
picture is likely to be whether it is made through camera or just painted by a
person.
Personally, I think the difference between photograph and picture is whether it
is real or not. When an artist draws a picture, he or she can change the
reality of which is uncomfortable for the person. Sometime happen that the
artist draws a picture using a lot of his or hers imagination, and this is not
“cutting out an instant in a shape in order to keep it in your heart forever”.
With photographs, however, people cannot change or eliminate the part that is
uncomfortable for them. Photograph shows a reality. And because of this, the
photograph can possess a big power.
To explain about this photograph’s power, I’d like
to quote some photographer’s interviews.
“A photo can photograph not only an object but also
a specific time and a period. By time passing, people who see the taken object
will change, and it might change how the photograph and photograph’s collection
appear to them. It could be said metamorphism of time? For this point of view,
photographs could be compared as an animal.”[ii]
— Syoukou Hashimoto
“A definition of a power of photograph, if it should be explained in one word,
might be: ‘the heaviness of the reality’ that ‘in the time’, ‘surely’ ‘there’
was ‘it’. A ‘real thing’ that you can see while facing the world through a
lens.”[iii]
— unknown
“With a photo, it is possible to photograph the
present condition itself.”[iv]
— Youichi Watanabe
From these quotes of three photographers, we can
get an idea about what a photograph is, and what a power of photograph is.
During this semester, I am going to introduce photographs, which photographed
“the present condition itself” during wartime and poverty. I will pick up
photographs, which changed (or could change) someone’s mind and make an action.
[i] Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary, Oxford University Press ©2011, from
[ii] Yokohama Keizai Shimbun (横浜経済新聞), 2012, from http://www.hamakei.com/column/252/
『写真は、被写体だけでなく特定の「時間」とか「時代」も写します。時が経つことにより、撮られた被写体も見る側の人間も変化することによって、写真と写真集が「違って見えてくる」ということがあるのではないでしょうか。「時の変成作用」とでも言いますか。その点で、写真は「生き物」に譬えられるかもしれません。』橋本照嵩
[iii] GALLERY 21 KLEE INC PARIS TOKYO,
2010, from http://www.gallery21-tokyo.com/jp/exhibitions/2010/powerofphotography/index.html
『写真の力をひと言で語るとしたら、"そこ"に"それ"が"その時"、確かに"在った" という「事実の重み」かもしれません。レンズを通して世界と向き合うことで見えてくる"本当のこと"』筆者不明
[iv]山下久猛, リクルート進学総研, “希望の道標”, from http://souken.shingakunet.com/career_g/2012/07/16-a6bf.html
『写真なら現状そのものを写しことが出来る』渡辺洋一
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