Fred Ritchin

 Hey Teach! 

Heres my opinions/ quotes I chose by Fred Ritchin

1. "Rather than a "decisive moment" selected from an advancing contiuum, the digital photograph can acknowledge a more elastic sense of time where future and past can intertwine and be as decisive as the present"

2. "The contradictory "double image" is cubist; reality has no single truth, Perhaps these soldiers are heroes, and perhaps the US government is Justified in its invasion. Maybe they have to lie prone on the tarmac, anxious about an unseen enemy. The additional photograph asks the question "Is this for real?" Or is this a simulation of an invasion created for the cameras?"

3. "Paradoxically, the subject of the photograph is often voiceless, unable to contest his or her depiction. Often the photographer barely knows the person, yet the image could be used to define the person or to represent a certain theme."

For #1 I feel that it really hits home about what photographs are to me, a moment of life frozen in time, but I really like the way it talks about how it intertwines both past and future. I specifically take from this the thought that a digital image can always be changed, edited, and forever morph. It's relevance is not only to the time but the context of it in the future, what it can do or how it may affect your life, as that image lives forever. Baby pictures, images of you that may be mugshots, anything of that sort is on the web somewhere and could be brought up at any time.

For #2 I feel like his thoughts on how photography shows the thought that reality has no single truth resonates with the purpose of photography and your teachings too. We all find our own path/ purpose in using photography to show our own forms of reality, or our "truths". It also specifically resonates with my philosophy of life. I really quite like Daoism, but my own form, the thought that nobody can fully grasp the dao, as it is beyond humans (the dao means the way) but that we all as we grow find our piece of the dao, and by following it we can enrich our spirit, our mind, and our bodies - that everyones dao is different and may clash, and they may shape our principles or perception, just like there is no single truth.

For #3 I find this one particularly intriguing because of something you said recently "every photo is a self portrait." - this circles back to #2 but specifically it got me thinking because it makes sense! Every photo you take is how you see reality, in a sense a look into your mind, and those people or objects or landscapes are just the ways you show it. Specifically the Lebanese girl photo it references is most likely the bias of someone in the war torn country or the perception that rich people are either cold/ uncaring or arent affected by war or something in that vein, but importantly that the man took people with real lives and then used them to craft an image from his brain, portraying them as his perception saw. It also most likely included the things he liked, or composition he liked, that he felt was in tune with his character or self - the purpose of a self portrait is just so - a stylized emotional or thought provoking composition made to show your perception of reality/ yourself and how you are affected by it in turn.