Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Baudelaire on Photography
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.
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2 comments:
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.
I 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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