feminist photography
I'm currently trying to wade through the literature/theory on photography so I admit I don't know it all but I'm surprised to find little on feminism and photography.
One bit I've found (and others I've heard of) are interested in 'reading' photography in a feminist way, and especially like to tackle the (male) gaze implied by photography.
But what about a feminist practitioner of photography?
I've been coming up against existential difficulties concerning photography because firstly, the most obvious thing about photography is you get to grasp an enormous phallus all day in the pursuit of your (second) favourite hobby!
Indeed, it seems the "lengths" one can go to are limitless.
So that's one problem. Should I enjoy my phallus-bellybutton or seek to disengage it? Of course it's attached to a machine analogous to a gun, it shoots and kills everything it sets its baleful eye on (see Susan Sontag for why photographs are all pictures of death).
There's also the difficulty of "truth" that a photograph apparently conveys - truth being something critiqued by feminist thought along with patriarchy, science, monotheism etc.
Having thought about this for quite a while I've come to think that the pinhole camera is much more feminist friendly. It has no phallus-lens but rather an opening, which is revealed to the light coming from the subject with no need for a mechanism (and therefore has no gun-click). The pinhole also needs more time to receive enough light from the scene to create a sufficient chemical reaction on the film. Holding up a flap for between 1 second to several hours seems more personal than shooting a shutter at fractions of a second.
It's still a bit fraught, however, since it still involves lifting a flap to "expose" a hole, but at least both camera and subject have to expose themselves to each other rather than the subject being murdered and the camera getting away scot-free.
Also, maybe since pinholes can give varying results and are affected by camera shake, portions that are out of focus and so-on, the photograph produced by a pinhole might not be forced to represent "truth" or "reality" but simply be what it is - an image.
Thanks to my sister I have a pinhole camera ready to go.
Does anybody else have these thoughts?
One bit I've found (and others I've heard of) are interested in 'reading' photography in a feminist way, and especially like to tackle the (male) gaze implied by photography.
But what about a feminist practitioner of photography?
I've been coming up against existential difficulties concerning photography because firstly, the most obvious thing about photography is you get to grasp an enormous phallus all day in the pursuit of your (second) favourite hobby!
Indeed, it seems the "lengths" one can go to are limitless.
So that's one problem. Should I enjoy my phallus-bellybutton or seek to disengage it? Of course it's attached to a machine analogous to a gun, it shoots and kills everything it sets its baleful eye on (see Susan Sontag for why photographs are all pictures of death).
There's also the difficulty of "truth" that a photograph apparently conveys - truth being something critiqued by feminist thought along with patriarchy, science, monotheism etc.
Having thought about this for quite a while I've come to think that the pinhole camera is much more feminist friendly. It has no phallus-lens but rather an opening, which is revealed to the light coming from the subject with no need for a mechanism (and therefore has no gun-click). The pinhole also needs more time to receive enough light from the scene to create a sufficient chemical reaction on the film. Holding up a flap for between 1 second to several hours seems more personal than shooting a shutter at fractions of a second.
It's still a bit fraught, however, since it still involves lifting a flap to "expose" a hole, but at least both camera and subject have to expose themselves to each other rather than the subject being murdered and the camera getting away scot-free.
Also, maybe since pinholes can give varying results and are affected by camera shake, portions that are out of focus and so-on, the photograph produced by a pinhole might not be forced to represent "truth" or "reality" but simply be what it is - an image.
Thanks to my sister I have a pinhole camera ready to go.
Does anybody else have these thoughts?