The Photographer's Eye Analysis

Szarkowski’s “The Photographer’s Eye”, discusses the transition at the beginning of the age of photography. One of the most striking statements he made was the fact that photography has made impacts on modern artists. Not only has it affected fellow photographers, but also painters, sculptors, and even writers. Being able to look at actual still photographs long after the moment it was taken has completely changed the way most people look at the world around them. Photographers are considered artists not only because they are able to capture those few seconds, but the way they frame the picture for its importance. Berger, in “Ways of Seeing”, discusses the importance of photography by describing the unreliable way used to picture things before the invention of photography. He opens by describing what imagery is to the viewer, basically something interpreted in relation to themselves, and the relation the person has to the picture. The context behind the image is just as important as the actual physical thing, and with photography, it gives greater context seeing as how in a painting, the viewer is getting a second hand perspective from the painter. This was a revelation I hadn’t thought of as an artist myself, that for the viewer to understand the …show more content…
However, most artwork I’ve been prompted to do outside of a professional setting had to rely on photo references, which are already through the photographer’s perspective. The metamorphosis of photography defined by Szarkowski makes sense, seeing as with all art movements, originally it is looked down on by its predecessors. Photography does what painters do in seconds but with higher detail and quality. However, through the way Szarkowski describes the artistic quality photographers possess, it then makes sense when Berger describes how the person behind the images and their ideas is just as important as the image