Medical Photography Research Paper

What is a disease? Does a particular disease only exist when it is perceived by an individual or certain number of individuals within a society, tribe or country even though it is something that is physiological? These are questions that I have and the answers can affect the practice of medicine, the individual afflicted with the disease and their family and the representation of the disease itself. In this short essay I attempt to tackle the definition of disease from an art perspective. Now, to arrive at my definition for the category of artwork that represents medical conditions and/or diseases, I begin with defining medical photography (a category we have spent a great amount of time on in class). Medical photography is a discipline that …show more content…
But, motivation really comes into question in artwork that represents medical conditions and diseases. I differentiate between artwork representing medical conditions and diseases and other artwork not representing disease because five things exists in such pieces; the disease itself, the patients themselves, the physician or physicians, the patients’ family/friends and the artist themselves. Though there are two theories; one that says that a disease is its own entity (ontological) and the other that the disease cannot exist separate from the person (physiological), I fall into the latter camp. Disease not only affects the individual, but it also affects the individual’s family and friends and how the physician or physicians care for the patient. Then there’s the artist. On one hand an artist could be motivated by their personal connection to someone who has been affected by the disease such as in Willie Osterman’s case. Osterman was motivated by his wife’s affliction with cancer and how that affected her and him as well. Due to the sensitivity of the matter, Osterman used a sensitive photograph process to create his art pieces; while Nick Nixon was motivated in part by the AIDS