The family album has a strongly representative function to potential new members through birth, marriage
(or the equivalent) and friendships. Thus we absorb by osmosis the ability to create ‘an image’ of the family and reflect the culture in which we live
through the photographs we make. The spaces between those photographs are the shadows in our lives archived only in our minds and accessible only to
others with whom we are very intimate, if at all. These attributes of photography are usually unexamined, implicitly included in our principles of pictorial
organisation, framing, exclusion, staging etc. When we view the products though, these attributes should be kept in mind, since they concern not only
the apparent subject matter, but with the mediums of photography, film and video themselves. |
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As Derrida said: ‘Skepticism is precisely what I’ve been talking to you about: the difference
between believing and seeing, between believing one sees and seeing between, catching a glimpse - or not. Before doubt ever becomes a system, skepsis
has to do with the eyes. The word refers to a visual perception, to the observation, vigilance, and attention of the gaze during an examination. One
is on the lookout, one reflects upon what one sees, reflects what one sees by delaying the moment of conclusion. Keeping the thing in sight, one keeps
on looking at it. The judgment depends on the hypothesis.’
Jacques
Derrida
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