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Picture-taking is a technique both for annexing the objective world and for expressing the singular self. Photographs depict objective realities that already exist, though only the camera can disclose them. And they depict an individual photographer's temperament discovering itself through the camera's cropping of reality. That is, photography has two antithetical ideals: in the first, photography is about the world and the photographer is a mere observer who counts for little; but in the second, photography is the instrument of intrepid, questing subjectivity and the photographer is all.
These conflicting ideals arise from a fundamental uneasiness on the part of both photographers and viewers of photographs toward the aggressive component in "taking" a picture. Accordingly, the ideal of a photographer as observer is attractive because it implicitly denies that picture-taking is an aggressive act. The issue, of course, is not so clear-cut. What photographers do cannot be characterized as simply predatory or as simply, and essentially, benevolent. As a consequence, one ideal of picture-taking or the other is always being rediscovered and championed.
An important result of the coexistence of these two ideals is a recurrent ambivalence toward photography's means. Whatever the claims that photography might make to be a form of personal expression on a par with painting, its originality is inextricably linked to the powers of a machine. The steady growth of thesepowers has made possible the extraordinary informativeness and imaginative formal beauty of many photographs, like Harold Edgerton's high-speed photographs of a bullethitting its target or of the swirls and eddies of a tennis stroke. But as cameras become more sophisticated, more automated, some photographers are tempted to disarm themselves or to suggest that they are not really armed, preferring to submit themselves to the limits imposed by premodern camera technology because a cruder, less high powered machine is thought to give more interesting or emotive results, to leave more room for creative accident. For example, it has been virtually a point of honor for many photographers, including Walker Evans and Cartier-Bresson, to refuse to use modern equipment. These photographers have come to doubt the value of the camera a an instrument of "fast seeing." Cartier- Bresson, in fact, claims that the modern camera may see too fast.
This ambivalence toward photographic means determines trends in taste. The cult of the future (of faster and faster seeing) alternates over timem with the wish to return to a purer past—when images had a handmade quality. This nostalgia for some pristine state of the photographicenterprise is currently wide-spread and underlies the present-day enthusiasm for daguerreotypes and the work of forgotten nineteenth- century provincial photographers.Photographers and viewers of photographs, it seems, need periodically to resist their own knowingness.
According to the passage, interest among photographers in each of photography's two ideals can be described as
A.rapidly changing
B.cyclically recurring
C.steadily growing
D.unimportant to the viewers of photographs
E.unrelated to changes in technology
The author's is primarily concerned with
A.establishing new technical standards for contemporary photography
B.analyzing the influence of photographic ideals on picture-taking
C.tracing the development of camera technology in the twentieth century
D.describing how photographers' individual temperaments are reflected in their work
E.explaining how the technical limitations imposed by certain photographers on themselves affect their work
The passage states all of the following about photographs EXCEPT:
A.They can display a cropped reality.
B.They can convey information
C.They can depict the photographer's temperament.
D.They can possess great formal beauty.
E.They can change the viewer's sensibilities.
The author mentions the work of. Harold Edgerton in order to provide an example of
A.how a controlled ambivalence toward photography's means can produce outstanding pictures
B.how the content of photographs has changed from the nineteenth century to the twentieth
C.the popularity of high-speed photography in the twentieth century
D.the relationship between photographic originality and technology
E.the primacy of formal beauty over emotional content
The passage suggests that photographers such as Walker Evans prefer old-fashioned techniques and equipment because these photographers
A.admire instruments of fast seeing
B.need to feel armed by technology
C.strive for intense formal beauty in their photographs
D.like the discipline that comes from self-imposed limitations
E.dislike the dependence of photographic effectiveness on the powers of a machine
According to the passage, the two antithetical ideals of photography differ primarily in the
A.value that each places on the beauty of the finished product
B.emphasis that each places on the emotional impact of the finished product
C.degree of technical knowledge that each requires of the photographer
D.extent of the power that each requires of the photographer's equipment
E.way in which each defines the role of the photographer
Which of the following statements would be most likely to begin the paragraph immediately following the passage?
A.Photographers, as a result of their heightened awareness of time, are constantly trying to capture events and actions that are fleeting.
B.Thus the cult of the future, the worship of machines and spend, is firmly established in spite of efforts to the contrary by some photographers.
C.The rejection of technical knowledge, how ever, can never be complete and photography cannot for any length of time pretend that it has no weapons.
D.The point of honor involved in rejecting complex equipment is, however, of no significance to the viewer of a photograph.
E.Consequently the impulse to return to the past through images that suggest a hand-wrought quality is nothing more than a passing fad.
