Tuesday 19th January 2021

About Looking: John Berger

We must now distinguish between two quite distinct uses of photography. there are photographs which belong to privet experience and there are those which are used publicly. The privet photograph- the portrait of a mother, a picture of a daughter, a group photo of one’s own team – is appreciated and read in a context which is continuous with that from which the camera removed it. Page 55

The camera has been used as an instrument to contribute to a living memory. The photograph is a memento from a life being lived. Page 56

If the public photograph contributes to a memory, it is to the memory of an unknowable and total stranger. The violence is expressed in that strangeness. It records an instant sight about which this stranger has shouted: look! Who is the stranger? One might answer: the photographer. Yet if one considers the entire use-system of photographed images, the answer of “the photographer” is clearly inadequate. Nor can one reply: those who use the photographs. it because the photograph carry no certain meaning in themselves, because they are like images in the memory if a total stranger, that they lend themselves to any use. Page 56 and 57