The contemporary meaning of photography: a story in color and in black and white

A short series of personal perceptions on photography

Foreword

Almost 200 years has passed since the bases of modern photography has been settled by directly or indirectly printing the right interpretation of our surrounding on the same manner as your eyesight. It was at the time a complete visual revolution that brings us with flashes of memory of our past time and many foreign spaces. It has shaped a new and extended vision of our world. It has fascinated large specialized or unaware different publics. Today photography even after 2 centuries remains a source of constant controversies on many of its diverse aspects or subjects. Some populations or cultures are still banning it on the base of its own subversive power.

At first photography was essentially a technical curiosity with strong limitations. It took several attempts and further technical development to reach a practical level of producing it. It was also a privilege medium of the few before industrial pioneers like George Eastman with its Kodak had popularized it. Today with the introduction of photography into the digital age with the web connected smartphones photography became an instant part of our every day life. But what is the contemporary meaning of today photography? Is it a simple communication tool of personal expression or a reliable memory instant statement of the time or a visual art expression of its own? Is it still valuable in our past-present-future way of living? Many questions had risen over the past three or four decades on the importance of the photography in our societies.

At least we have one answer about the need of photography in today world and it is paramount to try to evaluate its intense use in our way of communicating and living. Billions of pictures are presented on many different viewing supports everyday almost everywhere. So there is a strong demand to do and to consume photography and sorry…photography is not dead!

Here are the themes that have been developed along this series:

Polaroid all over the "Phone" Planet and the "Web" World (as a trace of personal life involvement) 

Can I say (show) something? (The purpose of photography)

Memory of the future: Paper, Disc, Cloud...Photography in search of a future! (The diary of our present conserved for the coming generation) 

Photojournalism: where is my public? 

The Art of frozen vision (Photography as a cultural expression) 

Doing your classical homework? (Is there a future for the traditional way of photographing?) - 
                                                                                                                                               
Your comments are always appreciated.

Daniel M