Philosopher Kendall Walton argues that photographs are distinctively different from other kinds of pictures: he thinks that we can literally see through them to the objects and people they are of. He explains this counterintuitive idea in the course of this interview with Nigel Warburton.
Listen to Kendall Walton on Photography
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I'd be curious to know of Mr. Walton's thoughts on devices used by artists such as the camera lucida and camera obscura. I don't think such a clear distinction between paintings and photographs can be made simply by how they were made. There's a centuries-long grey area in which every part of the camera was being used to make pictures except the photochemical process that fixed the image on glass/film. Certainly, there was still a hand making the lines and a mind interpreting them from the real world to a flat surface, but a mechanical device was collecting and presenting that data (light) to the artist in the same manner it is presented to emulsion.
Thank you for providing an entertaining and informative forum for ideas.
Posted by: Neil Jendon | December 27, 2012 at 08:18 PM