Photography has played a important role in how we see the world and even ourselves. This essay covers the broader aspects on how a simple image sent to us by either email, mms or even more complexed, a satellite sending images from outer space. How these images has changed the way we see the modern world with our own eyes. Has the way we look at photos changed the way we see the world in the modern day and age? Projecting images onto surfaces has been done for centuries. Cameras such as obscura and were used by artists to trace scenes as early as the 16th century.
These cameras of in the early stages did not fix a image in to time; they only projected what was threw the lense onto a separate surface. The first photo was taken by Joseph Niepce in France in the early 1800’s. He wanted to invent a way to capture the moment or the things you see on a piece of paper or film that you can always look back to that image and know what happened. That the image that you see brings back the memories that would have been long forgotten or not remembered in the same way as the feelings you felt at that moment when the picture was taken.
Since then the world has been obsessed and yet fascinated with capturing the ‘picture perfect’ moments of life. As time has gone by in the last century, ways have been invented to edit or enhance the quality or mood of the photo that has been taken. The development process and also the viewing process has changed drastically in the last 20 years. Now in the modern age we can do so much with a photo or a camera. Photo’s have been integrated into cellphones, computers ect. every where we turn a camera is there. The realisation that we can not go with out it is unreal.
Centuries ago we wrote down our experiences, describing it to the best we can. Now we just press a button wait a few seconds and we have the image with us forever. A simple photo of two people having a picnic next to a river can either show romance or friendship. A picture of an older gentleman in a park playing chess can show wisdom. Every chapter in ones life you try to remember the good moments. You try capture the memories with an image than can last a life time. With pictures this is possible. In the modern day and age there are applications like PhotoShop, Picnik, SplashUp ect. here it is possible to change the intention or atmosphere of that picture. It can change by simply adding a different colour or effect to the image. You can turn one picture from a romance novel into a thrilling horror image with just a few clicks of the technology of the modern world. Photography can help to define our understanding of cities, which are too hard to be understand in the average way we see or understand them. Sometimes the varied meanings of structures and artifacts, for example, can be more closely parsed through the power of the lens.
Aerial photographs show exactly how the patterns of a city is construction; street views frame its urban spaces; architectural photography documents the iconography and material used in the building of the city structures. Recently, scalable photographic images in programs such as Google Earth, has given us the opportunity to see cities, countries, little towns and streets with zoomable options. Making it easy for anyone who has access to the internet to ‘see’ the world in the comfort of their own lounge.
A combination of internet and photography has opened the world to students and adults alike to see things they don’t have the opportunity to see in the flesh. Photos tell stories about cities we would never have been able to understand or comprehend. It shows the historic layers of the times that has gone by. A interesting case of narrative power of photography is in Cape Town, a modern city who has an entire history that can be traced through photographic images. Its native wilderness is captured through photography, the dredging that transformed the landscape into real estate.
Over one century, photographs have recorded and stimulated Cape Town’s growth, and now stories of its history are being told through vintage views of its urban and architectural spaces. One such a place is Long Street how I has chaged over the years. The history rich buildings in which little shop owners make a living each has a story to be told that has been documented with photography. Photos have played a big role in how we see the modern world. Our point of views and thought change with the images we see that have been taken by other people. In the early 1900’s scientists were fascinated with the planets in our galaxy.
What life could there be? How were they able to survive in the outer world? Are humans able to live out there? Who or what is living there? With satellites being sent up to the skies. They returned months later with photographs of what they have seen. The moon we would never have thought as a crater surface planet and also Mars as the possible planet where there could be life. All have been seen and concluded threw photography. To me the way photography has changed over the years has changed the way we see things. Things we never imagined have been brought to life and we are able to view it in a way we can understand.
Photographs help us with almost everything we do in the age we live now. Different ways of portaiting this is threw magazines, internet, art as wel as a career in a photographer. In the modern age photography has created work for people who never dreamed that there monthly or yearly income will depend on what they see threw a lens and selling it to magazines or newspapers. Google has been able to let us look at images that have been sent to us by satellites of the moon and the other planets also animals in rainforests and under the ocean we have never seen before.
Photos in the modern day and age has opened doors to people who needed it for either support, friendship or even redemption. Images of loved ones have been sent via email to other individuals showing them there achievements or just a day in there life. What they look like now or what they accomplished. Finaly, I have concluded that photography has defined the way we think, do things and also how we see other people and places. Photos are apart of the modern day and age we are living in now. We need this technology to discover new things that can be of either great importance in the days future into our lifes but also in those of others.
It can be the point of no return for others or the day their life changes completely. Photography has defined who we are and how we think. How we see things and how we interpret them. Bibliography Google • How modern photography changes the way we see things in the modern world. www. answers. com/topic/photography • www. denaphoto. com/photohistory. html • www. questia. com/… /the-ideals-and-tendencies-of-modern-art-by-edward-clarence-farnsworth. jsp Mareli Basson and Lara Truther (photographers)
