Walking the Line
By: Laura
“The line between the reality that is photographed because it seems beautiful to us and the reality that seems beautiful because it has been photographed is very narrow.”
~Italo Calvino, Adventures of a Photographer.
Photo by Harold.
The line between photographing something because it is beautiful, and that particular object or memory becoming beautiful as a result of it being photographed is not only narrow, as Calvino says, but is almost nonexistent. How can we even define the difference? Once again I think it goes back to our perspectives, our personal definition of art. If you take a picture of a flower, is it because it really is pretty? Or does it become pretty when you look back on it later simply because you photographed it? Can it not be both? We could take a picture of the flower, or any object, because we enjoy it, because we want to remember it, because it is somehow special. And could it not then be beautiful later when we look back on it because we photographed it? I would suggest that we photograph something because it is beautiful and it later seems beautiful because we did photograph it. There is no line because, in essence, they are the same. The photograph of the houses above demonstrates this idea. If you were standing there in person, at that particular moment, its beauty might be doubtful. But looking at it now, there is no doubt that it is a beautiful photograph. So I wonder, was it beautiful when the photographer took the time to capture it? Or is it now beautiful because it was photographed? I think it must be both. The photographer was obviously drawn to the subject matter enough in the first place to take the time to photograph it. He saw something, perhaps an underlying beauty, that meant enough to him to capture. Its beauty, even if not obvious at first glance, was preserved through the photograph. And now it is beautiful because it was photographed. This is not to say that everything that we photograph is beautiful, or that it later becomes beautiful just because it was photographed. But I think this does show that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.
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Laura, I think that is a great photograph to convey your ideas on the subject that Calvino discusses. I feel that the line between the reality of beauty and photography is very difficult to establish because beauty is subjective. Sometimes i do wonder if objects or people sometimes become beautiful because they are photographed. Using the picture you posted as an example, im sure that if I were standing at those houses in person, i would have difficulty seeing the beauty in them but i have no doubt now that the photograph is a beautiful photograph. However, maybe to the photographer the houses seemed beautiful to him when he was standing there in person. I definitely agree with you that this topic does prove that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.