After reading “Plato’s Cave” from On Photography, I could not help but think about the ways in which photography has revolutionized the way people interact with media today. With technology developing at a quick pace, society has become more dependent on the media in which some people live through the use of media. For instance, people have been able to create careers and full-time jobs using media such as posting simple posts on Instagram or having plain instructional videos on YouTube. Regardless of the media, all of them have a heavy reliance on photography.
One of the main elements that photography is able to do is that it “furnishes evidence (pg.5).” People engage with photographs and publicize them to gain some satisfaction that you are able to show proof of your life adventures. It is as if you need to have photographic evidence to make yourself a more credible individual. Plus, people can use these images to add to their status online by boasting about how “fit” or “fortunate” their lives are. This is one of the many ways how photography has changed the media. It enforces this online culture of rising above one to another in which you gain this elite status. Therefore, you find many individuals investing their time when taking a photo ensuring they have the perfect lighting, pose, colors, contrast, and etc. The culture of photography has become less about capturing moments but rather capturing quality.
However, not all individuals care about the quality, others just care about content. In the article, “Taken From Life: The Unsettling Art of Death Photography” by BBC News, the idea of taking photographs of the dead seems a bit odd. The Victorians were concerned about getting photographs of their lost ones in order to respect the dead. However, the mourning method does seem unusual in which they preserve the bad part about life which is death. Although in contemporary society we mimic a similar style of mourning by dressing up those who have passed away in their coffin, the idea of preserving a photograph of a lost one when they were not alive seems unnecessary. Why not take a photo of the individual when they were alive and preserving moments of happiness?
It does make sense that this is so odd to me because, in those times, death was a natural reoccurring event that happened in their homes. Therefore, my separation and uneasiness of death allow me to feel this way. However, that does not convince me that taking photographs of the dead is still reasonable. You could say that all the photographs of the dead are just another photograph of something that is absent. Nevertheless, if I were to find myself taking photos of the dead, I would probably be concerned with much of the many things that photography has turned into such as lighting, scenery, etc. I would be concerned with getting quality to create a story from the photograph.