We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the sign started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides -- pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book.
"No one sees the barn," he said finally.
A long silence followed.
"Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn."
He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others.
We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies."
There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides.
"Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism."
Another silence ensued.
"They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said.
Tags: humor photography america satire tourism white-noise don-delillo
I don't trust words. I trust pictures.
Gilles PeressTags: photography
The shock of photographed atrocities wears off with repeated viewings, just as the surprise and bemusement felt the first time one sees a pornographic movie wear off after one sees a few more.
Susan SontagTags: photography humour pornography
Time eventually positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art.
Susan SontagTags: photography time
Pictures put you in front of a reality that most of the times you don't want to see, don't want to know about, don't want to get involved.
Oliviero ToscaniTags: photography creation
We are often taught to look for the beauty in all things, so in finding it, the layman asks the philosopher while the philosopher asks the photographer.
Criss JamiTags: art photography beauty perspective vision philosophy philosopher modeling searching teachings photos finding photographer searching-and-finding layman
Sometimes one waits too long for the perfect moment before snapping the picture. You never realize that you needed was to change perspective.
Miguel SyjucoTags: photography perspective patience
The only other white people we saw during the three days we stayed there were a German couple intent on taking pictures of their stuffed sheep in a variety of locations around the world.
TynanTags: photography travel japan
I looked at the images hanging on the walls, wanting to find those things in her pictures. My favorite was directly across from me: a photo of a beaten, weathered hull of a rowboat. I knew about as much about boats as I did photography, which was next to nothing, but that boat wasn’t going anywhere near the water anytime soon unless the owner decided it would make a mediocre shipwreck to explore while scuba diving. Nevertheless, it faced the out-of-focus lake in the background, almost hopefully, as if it hadn’t yet decided its best days were gone, as if it still dreamed of bobbing peacefully on the waves.
“Does that one have a name?” I asked.
She smiled. “Seaworthy.
Tags: humor photography
...if we consider the difference between William Henry Jackson packing in his cameras by mule, and the person stepping out of his car to take a picture with an Instamatic, it becomes clear how some of our space has vanished; if the time it takes to cross space is a way by which we define it, then to arrive at a view of space 'in no time' is to have denied its reality.
Robert AdamsTags: photography
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