As I was reading Fleming, I was a bit surprised to learn that Baudelaire was a big critic on photography. Apparently Baudelaire did not see photography as art since it was focused on "optical reality." I thought that as a artist himself (I consider poetry an art) Baudelaire would understand the artistic beauty in photography. However the idea of photography as art is still a topic that many people struggle with today. With more thought, I am not surprised with Baudelaire's reaction. Photography was a new invention and it only took a split second to capture the image. It makes sense that Baudelaire, as a poet obsessed with absolute world control and mastery of craftsmanship, would argue that photography was crude.
I also thought it was reasonable that Baudelaire thought photography was a "crude art." I think one factor was the amount time it took to take a photo. Baudelaire's poems took hours to write where a picture would take a split second to capture. I think the "art" of photography was the actual developing of the photo.
ReplyDeleteI don't really think taking pictures is art. There are some great photos and there are certain things you are supposed to keep in mind while taking a photo, but it's really just capturing a moment for what it actually is. If you don't know the context of the photo, you can speculate the meaning but that just seems odd
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