Questions

Andre Bazin asserts that “painting is after all, an inferior way of making likenesses, an ersatz of the processes of reproduction” (8). In the wake of this mechanical process that can capture a scene in an instant of time, how does this new typology fit in relation to painting in terms of quality?

Undoubtedly photography and its technology is effective in the process of a pure reproduction but the word likeness is open ended and as different languages of art, painting and photography occupy different spaces in the realm of reproduction. If the end goal of likeness is to produce an image as closely as it is aesthetically, then photography seems to be a superior tool. Yet black and white photography or even unskilled photography can distort what is real and create images that are not exactly like what the human eye sees as opposed to the lens. Even the process of layers and chemicals imply a sort of trajectory through which an image has to be taken to become a photograph. On the other hand, at present, photographic manipulation technology has redefined what a photograph is and the scale of likeness is extended infinitely. Painting with the human hand is not as exactly but it in theory might be a little closer to the likeness of inexactness and variation that we experience in everyday life.

Kracauer points out that photography is similar to fashion where both are confined by time, and ceases to have legitimacy when old. Is it possible for a photograph to be timeless and unbound by what we as humans have defined as history?

As the mechanical process of taking a picture records an instant in time, the image and the time that it is taken is confined to a time date and place. However, the content of the image itself can perhaps break out of the limits of time where when it is viewed at different times across different time periods, it may be impossible to distinguish the time of the image from the image alone. In this scenario, the content of the image potentially has no relationship or correspondence to things to be compared with or related to, and at this point an image with these attributes may not be confined to what we can relate it to and time itself.