Take a Picture it Lasts Longer

13Nov06

By: Madeline 

“Having exhausted every possibility, at the moment when he was coming full circle Antonino realized that photographing photographs was the only course that he had left-or, rather, the true course he had obscurely been seeking all the time.”

 

-Calvino “The Adventures of a Photographer” 186 

This photograph was taken by Ansel Adams. He is a photographer that takes picutres of mostly western landscapes. He also developed zone exposure to get maximum tonal range from black and white films. Adams was inspired by a childhood trip to Yosemite. This photograph inperticular is a picture of his taken and cut into different sections, at different angles and at different zooms. Then put together as one. This picture is taken of other pictures and put together as one. Taking pictures of pictures just like in the quote. Because Antonino had gotten to the point where he had already taken pictures of everything he could he had nothing left to photograph. He had taken pictures of Bice 24 hours a day and when she left he continued to take pictures of her absence. He can no longer take pictures of real things and be satisfied. He has to take picutres of things that have already been captured to be able to satisfy his urge of taking a picture. He no longer has anything to take pictures of except what he and others had already taken pictures of. This photograph is pictures of pictures. Adams took a picture and then took a picutre of that picture and pieced it together.  It wouldn’t work if it was just the original picture cut and put back together. There is no background to the picture if it is the original it is just the picture itself. But after you have taken a picture of the picture there is the posibility of a background wherever the picture is taken. Which makes it known that it is a picture of a picture and not the original photograph.

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