the lesson from blow-up
DESCRIPTION
In this presentation, Lore Alexa Lawrence discusses the 1966 film, Blow-Up by Michelangelo Antonioni. She explores how the underpinning ideas of the film could be applied to how we intact with photography today. For more, check out her website http://lorealexalawrence.orgTRANSCRIPT
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The Lesson of Blow-‐Up
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In the 60s movie Blow-‐Up, a photographer witnesses what he thinks is a murder commi?ed in a
London park.
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He furBvely takes photos, and, several blow-‐ups and a number of sexual encounters later, he sBll is no
closer to the truth.
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Was it real? Did his eyes and his camera deceive him?
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And did it even ma?er?
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David Hemmings in Blow-‐Up. 1966
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Antonioni’s 1966 film both glamourized and denigrated
photography at the same Bme.
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His hero, played by actor David Hemmings, is a man with all the technical skills needed to climb to the top of the London’s swinging social scene, with the requisite
female flesh included.
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He has a treasure trove of pricey equipment set at the criBcal F-‐stops, a studio, a studio assistant, and a
Rolls Royce with a phone.
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Yet despite all that skill and stuff, he sBll didn’t know more than the average person what was in the
image.
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FiUy years onward, we are sBll visually illiterate, only even more so.
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DigiBzed images remove not only move things like grain (although there is something called “snow”), they also remove thinking process.
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I’m not talking about the underexposed birthday party
pictures bathed in candlelight or the dumb vacaBon pictures on the beach where someone’s head is
invariably cut off.
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I’m talking about the ability to think through a picture like any other
piece of art.
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What you are trying to express, how you are going to do it, what tools to use (I don’t mean Photoshop or Lightroom), and ulBmately what
does it signify.
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How do you read a picture?
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In the age of Instagram (visual graffiB) and sexBng, and an
unlimited number of built in, bad-‐taste filters, photos are instantly
malleable and instantly uploadable – someBmes to the great regret of the person who suddenly realizes that once their naked private parts hit
the ether, that’s it.
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Every college and job interview hereon in will have a genital focus.
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Film, on the other hand, had to be selected for ISO, saturaBon, brand,
size.
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The camera body and make ma?ered.
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So did the focal length of the lens.
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People lived in the world of manual.
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They chose their shots carefully, the subject and details, and chose them
carefully too.
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The photographer Ansel Adams said that if he got one money shot out of 50, he considered himself lucky.
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But he wasn’t a point-‐and-‐shoot guy.
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He thought everything out.
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Back to Antonioni’s hot and confused David Hemmings.
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Would he have liked Instagram? Anybody who goes through all that
trouble to find an answer to a serious quesBon, my guess is
probably not.