outline to pixel profiles

forging new moments into un-chartable spaces
(sontag 53)

I am going to post a rather large blurb (you will have to scroll down). I wrote this awhile back, in fact it was 2009 and I recently discovered it in my teaching Reflective Journal. I want to share it with you and use it to contextualize my thinking for this project "pixel profiles" (pp). I think this bit (with no references to back up or place my theories and thoughts_ eish Masters & Plagarism) of free form writing not only outlines my thinking around the complexities of the nature of capturing a moment, which a Photograph is 'esteemed' to do but also interrogates how the nature of digital photography has 'complicated' yet creatively 'opened' photography. In the 'power of pixels', I 'see' other/new paradigms (worldviews, typical examples, patterns of something; a model) where creative power lie in the duplication and (re)distribution of these. David Campany (in his book Art and Photography_available from City Campus library) says: "A photograph maybe a fixed image but its meaning is much less stable". I agree with Campany, and when an image is made from pixels, this further complicates "meaning" because it can exist in many places at once, and it's meaning fluctuates and adapts as it visits and exists who knows where.

 

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pixel

The points below are what i find exciting about the makeup of a pixel (wikipedia) and this is where I feel it's creative power lies. 

• it is a single point 
• the smallest addressable screen element for any display device
• the smallest unit of picture that can be represented
• it can be controlled
• each pixel has its own address with it's own co-ordinates
• it is often represented using dots or squares in a grid
• each pixel is a sample/representation of an original image
• aids in the duplication and distribution of the original or sample
• blurs what (where) is the original and what (where) is the sample 
• the intensity of each pixel is variable
• color is typically represented by three (RGB:red, green,blue) or four (CMYK: cyan, magenta, yellow, black) 

 
 

 

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blurb 

 (liza 2009)

a moment to explain ...a moment within a moment

" Photography is said to capture a moment.  This could be moment in time, a moment in history, an incidental moment, a conceived moment but nonetheless is it just a moment?  Events before, during and after that moment are often selectively ignored, overlooked or edited and left to the imagination and interpretation of the viewer. One moment is presented with an effect that may hold great insight into many moments or a moment within a greater moment. 

 What happens just before and just after one presses the shutter button?

Through Digital Technology one is able to reconstruct that moment.  In image editing programs like Photoshop, one can recreate a moment, be it fictional or perhaps a moment that may have passed. A pixel, like the viewfinder, with its rectangular framing offers great scope for redefining a moment, within a greater moment.

Presently, one is saturated with images and their digital translations. They are integral to a society driven and informed by media and new technology. For a Photographer, the translation of an image into a digital one takes place in two ways. One may photograph using a digital camera or copy an existing photograph or negative using a scanner into a digital format. Once a digital version of the photograph exists, the Traditional Darkroom (b/w + colour) is replaced by the Digital Darkroom. Adobe Photoshop is the most common and significant professional software program for decoding, enhancing and processing pixels. In image editing programs like Photoshop, it is possible to recreate an event or an incident, be it fictional or based on factual accounts. 

Digital Photography is accessible and instant, playful and spontaneous. One has control over the results (one may match the human experience in colour and vision). There is a strong connection to the moment. A photograph is not just a two dimensional image, dictated by light and shutter speeds but a powerful tool for communication.  In a world infested with visual media, digital capture and obsessed with instant access a photograph gathers momentum to become a great driving force in these arenas. Digital has changed the way people record, store, print, share, think and express.  It has created a culture." 

Have pixels 'sweetened' how we capture and create?


☕