I have received criticism for my questioning and reflection of photography as an applied art in the design industry, and in particular, to the role it can play as a design tool. I take this criticism constructively as it offers me the opportunity to reflect on my concepts and practice. Firstly, I would like to state that I am of the opinion that innovation and even inspiration, cannot and should not be limited by narrow-minded views society places on culture. In photography's beginning, the photograph was marked by the stigma that it was not art, but purely referential. Barthes said "it is Reference, which is the founding order of photography".1 While I agree with this, I would like to exercise the idea that reference could be harnessed as a tool for photography to build upon.
If photography is purely referential, and one could not build upon this, then it would suggest that photography is purely a reflection of reality - a documentation of sorts - and that it could not be or do anything else. I call to question this purist view of photography which limits it to the traditional two-dimensionality of the physical photograph, without considering new innovations which have allowed photography to expand beyond the simple photographic print and opened up a platform of new possibilities for collaboration and mixed media. Yes perhaps this pushes the boundaries of photography and maybe even leaks it into other art and design practices, but in this time of consistent rapid cultural change and online media it is constricting and detrimental to photographic practice not to expand, and it is certainly not of my opinion that doing so makes you any less of a photographer.
References:
1 Barthes, R 2010 (1980). Camera Lucida - Reflections on Photography, trans. R, Howard, Hill and
Wang, New York. P 77.
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