Trebuchet 13: Photography

Trebuchet 13: Photography – may 2023 – Out Now!

If creating an image is an artistic act then photography must be the most popular medium of creative endeavour in the 21st century. The huge number of images shared each day is dwarfed by the volume of images we consume. Have we evolved the means to process this vast amount of produced visual images? And what does this mean for us psychologically, let alone socially?

Photographic images contain a lot of information. The construction of that information is not only what’s there, but what someone wanted to be there when they captured the image. This issue looks at the types of intention behind image creation. It features photographers who want to express something artistic in their work and who question the role of photography in depicting an opinionated reality. Truth, falsehoods, fantasies, fears, identity, symbols and sanity can all be described through the medium, but great photography offers more than it reveals.

The paradox of photography is that we know that it presents a moment shown in such a way that implies a context, but without further information, we only know what we see. We distrust this visual island, but at the same we are compelled to believe its reality. All art tells a story, but the tantalising thing about photography is how it frames reality as a character. Hero, villain, saviour or seducer; the danger and wonder of photography is in opening the shutters and seeing it their way.

Photography – Looking for the extraordinary

Featuring:

Richard Avedon: The Authentic American Storyteller
Matt Saunders: Photography as Material
The Bodleian: The Photographic Archive of Everything
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Moments, Memory & Time
Photography, Representation and the Universal: Martin Lang
Raghu Rai: Deprogramming Consciousness
Time and Space: Priorities in the Photography of Alexey Titarenko and Imogen Bloor
Cindy Sherman: Product Preparation and Statements of Work
Wawi Navarroza: Colour and Cultural Meaning