"The Ontology of the Photographic Image" by Andre Bazin

       Since ancient times, humans have been obsessed with the ideology of living after death. The article “The Ontology of the Photographic Image” by Andre Bazin, lists a few ways humans went about preserving their image after their departure from the world, including mummification and the more-popular self-portraits. In this day and age, however, an image is not considered so much as a way to preserve life, but is given more of an artistic sense, and is either composed almost entirely for aesthetic purposes only, or to accurately represent the surrounding world through realism. The only way to capture true realism, however, is through either photography for cinema, as “the fact that a human hand intervened cast a shadow of doubt over the image.”

       Bazin’s statement of the reliability of paintings vs. photographs is valid in my opinion, as the artist is able to manipulate and alter reality as he sees fit. The photographer, however, is limited to what is actually before him, and despite the means in which he takes the photo; the photo will always bear some semblance of reality. I especially enjoyed the sentence “photography does not create eternity, as art does, it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its power corruption.” I also agree with the concept that, with the invention of photography, art is now free to regain its aesthetic beauty as it doesn’t have to strive for realism anymore.