Chapter 4 Reading Response

This chapter discusses photography less as an art form that artists do and more as a social tool integrated into the fabric of our lives. For example, it is difficult to do much of anything without an ID, and that requires a picture of yourself, so you must submit both your image and your information the archives to be able to navigate through various institutions. 

Photography of the body is inevitable tied to body politics. Since most industries were run by men, it is no surprise that pictures were largely created for a male audience. Also, the industry of photography existed and still exists in the economic system of capitalism, meaning that there is economic incentive to create pictures that will sell. Photography seemed particularly suited to objectify people, particularly women, because pictures only show the surface and turn the subject into an object to be looked at. Since pictures are social constructions, the dominant pictures in a given society are a reflection of the people in charge who have the resources to publish on a large scale. They also say something about the culture's values, as something in a picture must have been important enough to visually capture and distribute. 

Q: Do pictures sometimes seem more real than reality, and how does that affect our perception of reality?