Prieto, A. LL1 – The Thing Itself

In “The Thing Itself” in The Photographer’s Eye by John Szarkowski, he makes a point to differentiate the subject that is being photographed from the actual final photograph. That is because the photographer acts as an interpreter, or a translator, to the thing itself. In this way, the photographer is an interloper who projects their own vision, goal, and language unto the event and transforms it into a still image. Another difference is that while the event doesn’t have to be dramatic or monumental, the resulting image can have those qualities simply because of the way the photographer framed it, or vice versa. It is very important to remember that there are many ways of looking at something, but most of the time, the photographer is only showing the viewer a few. That is why the subject and the photograph are entirely different from one another.

The reason that photograph can become more important than the thing itself is because it can become the “symbolic report” of the event, according to Szarkowski. Although history is a continuous movement, the collective social memory of a war, or a natural disaster can be represented by a handful of photographs from that event. In this sense photographers act like record keepers, because the viewers believe that a photograph represents the truth.  The iconic images that become part of the media are small but effective communicators of past events, and they can become more important because they can represent larger issues. A photograph of a starving anonymous African child can become the iconic image representing poverty or hunger, but it can also be an image of the lasting damages of racism and colonialist policies. In that way, one photograph can represent the plight of millions of people, and be more important than the original subject–the first anonymous child.