Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Photographs and God

Yesterday we talked about photographs and how God only takes pictures of people on Sunday's (assumably when they are in Church), and how his view of people would be distorted by his small "snapshot" of people's personalities. Well, as we talked about the Tin Drum's references to photos, I remembered that Jose Arcadio would only believe in God if he saw a daguerrotype of him. Perhaps photographs are a larger post-modern motif? After a little research, very little research, I came across a site that talked about just that: photography and its' place in post-modernism. It says that "For postmodern thinkers photography is not the stimulus for theory but the consequence of it." Before I forget the site is http://www.tardiffphotography.com/postmodernism.html. I find this to be a hard concept to grasp, but what I think is being said is that ideas are not produced through photography, but captured. So perhaps that is why Jose Arcadio Buendia wanted a photograph of God, to prove his existence. Are there any other interpretations?

1 comment:

Laura N said...

Maybe photographs are important to post modernism because some pictures become icons which shape the reality in which we live. pictures from the Vietnam war, Holocaust and Great Depression have become famous because they do more than capture that moment in time, they help define that moment in time. Also,like a painting or book, maybe pictures can make the observer see the world differently.