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What's Special About Photography? Ted Cohen

In this essay the author is giving us different views about photography. Major fact that the author discusses is how photography relates to the world in different ways, a relation that cannot be shared by other pictures. According to the author "a photograph must be of something" meaning being a picture of, on the other hand a photograph guarantees the existence of I, which disqualifies that a photograph must be of something. A photograph is a reflection or emission of light and a casual sequel to something. Also another idea the author depicts is that a photograph is a picture of whatever it is a fossil of. Author supports this idea by the picture of Uncle Fritz, which explains how the speck was a fossil of Uncle Fritz. This example leads us to the fact that a photograph may not resemble its subject, but a non-photographic picture may resemble its subject. We look for parents in their children and we look for subjects in the photographs. If we find a parent in their adopted children and a subject in a non-photographic picture, the author attributed this to Artifice. The photographs are like a natural child and pictures are like adopted children. The author summarizes this concept by saying that if you say my son looks like me in the picture, but you wouldn't have an easy time analyzing the similarities. In the same way you will not have an easy time explaining the resemblance of a photograph to its subject.

"One has faith in photographs", we all have faith in photographs and we all agree with the fact that when we look at pictures, we look in past. Our faith in photographs will not work in court; we would have to prove that the girl in the picture is Bob's daughter. Photographers have an advantage of an automatic camera but they are the ones who look for that great moment and make an effort to take a photograph. Camera is an automatic machine but we can't ignore the artistic capacities of the photographer. Also what is very important is the value of a plastic art. It's an expression of feeling and emotion, celebration of life and it's the way of photographers finding to see that expression and celebration. Author gives an example of M, L & X. M is a maker who makes X and L is a looker who looks at X. M is a case of a photographer and L is a painter. M the photographer has a preconception of what he is going to make and L has no preconception of what he is going to look at until he sees it. Sometimes when a photographer discovers something remarkable in the picture after developing, in this case photographer didn't have a preconception of what he was going to make and developed a piece of art. In conclusion, the author says that there is nothing in the nature of photography which disqualifies it as art. Photographs have value to us and we hope that they will touch our children one day and only photographs can do that for us, not paintings.

M is Photographer who had a L is a painter and did not had a

preconception of what he was preconception of what he was

going to make. going look at until he sees it.

M relation L

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