The beginning of the chapter talks a lot about the actual technology or invention of the photographic camera and the role it played in society. “…It can be argued that technologies have some agency- that is, they have more important and influential effects on society but they are also themselves the product of their particular societies and times and the ideologies that exist within them and within which they are used.” The book says the photographic camera was “invented” simultaneously by several people working in different countries in the late 1830s. It was used mostly for medical, legal and scientific uses and those uses influenced the ways photographic technologies were developed. Eventually societies saw that the photographic camera could be a technology not just scientist or doctors could use. “In other words, photography emerged as a popular medium not simply because it was invented, but because it fulfilled particular social demands of the early nineteenth century.”
Stemming off the technology of the photographic camera came sequential photography, motion picture film, projectors etc. All three of those technologies, more so the motion picture film and projector, enabled “projection that was large enough for an assembled group of people to watch the same film at the same time and in the same place…” That is a huge step from a little camera that can just take a few still photographs that then take hours to develop. Because of the “progress” in the photographic camera technology, mass entertainment/knowledge became present in societies.
Later in the chapter “authenticity” is talked about and I found that pretty interesting. The past two summers I worked in a print screening shop where digital imaging/graphic designing was a huge part of what we did. In our “shop” we had a studio setup for models to model our clothing etc. Digital imaging, in my opinion, really takes away the authenticity of a photo because of all the things you can do to render them. Almost every picture of every model that wore our jeans was directly sent to our graphic designers to “touch the pictures up”. If a girls butt was too big, they’d make it smaller, if her legs were too fat, they’d make them skinnier, etc.
Reproducibility with Che Guevara was greatly talked about. The book showed the reproduction of the photograph of Che in many different forms. Eventually explaining how the reproductions of the photograph lead to mass appreciation of what he did and stood for. “Throughout the world, the Che image has circulated not only as an icon of both revolutionary politics and leftist uprisings but also as an icon of the charisma of revolutionary heroes.”
Trey Anastasio is the lead singer/guitarist for the band Phish. Whether it be from mass amounts of people claiming he is the one of the most influential guitar players ever to live or because of striking resemblance to Che, there is a "Tre" shirt. Trey, like Che, "is a icon of the charisma of revolutionary heroes."The court case of Rogers vs. Koons and its involvement with copyright laws was also pretty interesting. I thought Rogers would have won the court case because Cons basically just stole his copyrighted photo and sent it to an Italian studio to make postcards and other things with it. Can someone explain how Rogers lost that case?
The last thing that struck me in the chapter was the image from the 2004 Bush campaign “Whatever It Takes.” I think even though we are in a day and age were we need to be suspicious of whatever digital photo we see, a presidential candidate wouldn’t alter something like that to trick the audience (the American people).
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