Connectivity:cultural context in photography

This is a potentaly huge subject with many sub categories one could cover. The first thing that came to my mind on this is how powerful photography has been in its relatively short life in all aspects of our lives, from what we wear, eat and talk about daily. However for the purpose of the blog I am going to focus on the Cult of Personality through photography. I feel it is prevalent and current in the media with the ongoing sagas of celebrity culture, paparazzi and marketing.
Iconic images of Marilyn, Elvis and Muhammed Ali are my first thoughts on the cult of personality, perhaps because of the use of images of celebrities by Andy Warhol are so familiar even now. They had something exuding from their pictures that you wouldn't forget even if you'd never seen moving footage of them. However this method not only worked for entertainers and sportsmen, it was abused by despots such as Stalin and Hitler to ruthlessly promote their image to brain wash the fearful public. The camera can capture the passion in people whether it is good or evil.

Andy Warhol



Nowadays in western culture we are selling more magazines and papers than ever before despite the internet due to our unquenchable thirst for images, not only of celebrities but of fashion, interiors, bands, music and so on.
The celebrity culture,paparazzi lifestyle has recently been called into question because of privacy issues, have we crossed the line? Is it quality or quantity that we want. I feel it is the latter, because images equals money.

It would be the most terrible thing to realize you have no photographs of yourself or your family growing up, it validates your life even if you can't remeber it and gives even those from the humblest homes memories of happiness, staged or unstaged!
It seems we have almost come full circle in photograpy as we are now in a hayday of personal and home snapping just as we were at the dawn of photography. Proud images of families in a victorian home or current pictures on facebook and flickr of your children or fun nights out with friends serve the same purposes.

This principle has largely been about the theory behind photography, ie: the art history and the relevance of certain photographers and styles as well as the importance of photography in everyday life. Sublimenaly photography we have seen throughout our lives will affect our own work and way of thinking. Prehaps we a drawn towards bright, happy images or perhaps we are more attracted to a subtle beauty or sentimentality, even the beauty in sadness.

Robert C Wiles

Ella Carman

Something both beautiful and tragic in both of these pictures even though they are very different.

For me in my practical work documentary photography has appealed to me very much as it can convey many different emotions that I may want to express through things going on around me.