Photography: A Rejection or Embrace of the Present Moment?
Drawing on the photographic philosophies of Doug Dubois, Susan Sontag, and Nan Goldin, this essay examines how the art of capture affects our relationship with the present moment.
Photography poses one of the greatest paradoxes of our time: the act of preserving a moment is facilitated by breaking direct connection with it. Both philosophically and technologically speaking, human beings have conjured a tool that physically preserves a visual moment. Though this capturing is motivated by some urge to retain visual evidence of an experience, one may posit the inevitable nature of the act: when we photograph, cut ourselves off from the direct experience. In other words, we put a device between an event and our perception of it. By pausing to gaze through a lens and press a shutter–namely, putting forth any effort required to take a photograph–does this act reject, or embrace the present moment? Are our experiences interrupted, deepened, or remain unchanged when we decide to photograph them? In either case, photography has undeniably changed our relationship with the uniquely human fragments of sensory experience that we call moments.
I will begin by exploring the more cynical response: photography is a rejection of the present moment. It is an interruption, an infringement, on our direct perception of life. Susan Sontag critically advanced this argument. With greater technological advancement and popularization of photography, Sontag observes a phenomenon: photography has converted experience into an image. In other words, our experience of an event is increasingly facilitated by the purpose of photographing it. Today, this is exacerbated by social media, where capturing content becomes a major dimension of our experiences. Although Instagram was far ahead of Sontag’s time, she had captured the trajectory of this ethos with quite remarkable precision. The pressure to cultivate a social media presence imbues the user with a feeling of incompleteness unless a photo is taken. At this rate, are we on a path to live more vicariously through our act of photographing, increasingly removed from a connection with the present moment? Currently, one could even posit that the sense of incompleteness may not be resolved until the photo is posted online–some remain unfulfilled until an image receives 100, 200, 1000 likes and so forth, until suddenly, a connection with the present moment becomes replaced with an obsession of the social potential of our image. In any case, Sontag’s observation is certainly exacerbated by the urge to keep up with the digital cultures inherent on our social media platforms. “Everything exists to end in a photograph,” she wrote in her essay, “In Plato’s Cave”. The moments with family and friends are interrupted by our need to document. We reach for apps on demand when we witness something funny, surprising, or rare, rather than basking in the moment. We coordinate our outings according to what may be “capturable”, or “on brand” to a certain aesthetic. Cell phone cameras now replace the once sea of lighters that used to ripple across concert crowds, with our camera roll applications becoming an “extension of our memories”. Indeed, Sontag’s observation is valid, and its accuracy unprecedented; but why does it infuriate her? What is so intrinsically wrong about desiring closure of an experience through photographs, the urge to record a moment rather than relish in its existence, or watching life through a viewfinder? What is at stake and how might reality deserve, or demand, our full presence? It is simply not comprehensive to suggest that either the most beautiful or most painful experiences are the ones left uncaptured. Perhaps certain moments are too intimate, too vulnerable, too emotionally and sensorily intense. Even so, the lines are blurred through our subjective interpretations. Although it seems that we collectively agree on a certain threshold of what is versus what is not appropriate to photograph as a culture, there are a few outliers: consider photographer Doug Dubois.
Dubois captured intimate portraits of his father as he recovered from a tragic fall from a commuter train and his mother, as she suffered from severe depression. His images encapsulate the raw pain and anguish in his own family over the course of this twenty-five year photographic endeavor. This collective of work, titled “All the days and nights”, was met with great backlash and many questions. This reinforced the observed tendency of some unspoken collective belief that this act–this capturing and publicizing the pain and vulnerability of your family–is frowned upon. Dubois, however, felt empowered by his exposition (or, exploitation?), inspired by the words of Donald Atrim to the novelist’s own family: “I have a right to tell my story, and I’m sorry, but you’re in it.”
Doug DuBois — All the days and nights
I find that the frustration surfaced in response to Dubois’s publicizing of sensitive, personal family moments was justified by reasons that suggest the inherent irrationality within watching life through a camera. For one, the camera is a tool–or perhaps, a weapon, in a more negative connotation–that inevitably transforms a subject into a spectacle. Undeniably, there are numerous occasions that may be inappropriate to transform into a prospect. For instance, we tend to resist photographing the death of a loved one, or the scene of a birth. Perhaps we choose to presently participate in the personally significant occasion and therefore avoid creating a display out of the moment. Also, it seems that some moments simply require our full attentive presence. We may resist photographing because that moment provokes intense emotions within us, and our biological processes require that we direct our full attention and energy expenditure on processing such feelings rather than fumbling with a relatively less essential gadget. It seems more appropriate to capture, say, a near-death experience, or a traumatic situation, with words thereafter the fact, rather than pulling out a camera to document. Overall, human beings–with our fascinating memory-preserving tool of the modern world–tend to acknowledge and accept that many experiences are being facilitated through their own capture. We increasingly watch life through the window of the camera lens, but we also tend to recognize when it’s inappropriate to allow this to occur.
On the other hand, some claim that photography is a way to embrace and cherish the present moment. American photographer Nan Goldin especially exemplified this belief. Through her work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1986), she explores a diaristic account of “underground” subcultures through her closest friends and family. Drugs, sexuality struggles, AIDS, addiction, abuse are among her main photographic themes–one may ask, how could anyone possibly desire to pause and dive into such heavy moments? Goldin demonstrated that photography helped her understand, cope, and survive such difficult life experiences, as they “took care of the past” and allowed her to “focus on the present moment”. This is quite the contrast from Sontag’s perspective, which argued nearly the complete opposite belief. Goldin rather saw the camera as a tool of liberation, allowing her to outsource the mental energy of retaining and coping with life’s intense memories. It also allowed her to preserve and hold onto her deceased sister, in perhaps the last tangible essence of her. With the past taken care of–moments and people, pigeonholed and processed–she was better equipped to handle life as it happened to her.
Buzz and Nan at the Afterhours, New York City, 1980
“Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” at Museum of Modern Art, New York
As exemplified by Goldin, photography allows us to put a moment on pause and explore it to greater depths. Any given moment beholds an infinite degree of secrets, layers, connections, and perspectives to uncover. The camera is a tool of preservation and analysis that allows us to make sense of such feelings, relationships, events, people, places, and life itself. It is a way to understand ourselves as the viewer, as what we discover through our interpretation of the image reveals much about the way we think. Consequently, this may allow for a fuller procession of life as we endure it.
Through Nan Goldin, I feel deeply understood. However, Goldin seems to use photography as a tool to foster an understanding and appreciation of the present, almost as a way to make space for it. Yet truly, the act of photographing in itself can be a way to appreciate the present moment. Contrary to Sontag, I stand by the belief that photography is an act of paying the utmost respect towards a moment. It is an urge of respect, or interest so deep, that one cannot help but endow the moment with permanence. It means to be so compelled by a moment–for whatever beauty it emanates, or truth it evokes, however precious or disturbing it may be–that it is worth savoring. It is my way of saying, “dear present moment, I think you are so intriguing, that I need to keep you, forever.” The camera is my tool to appreciate, to honor, to romanticize, to relish life itself. It is a way to build narratives that portray how meaningful this life is, even when it may seem otherwise. For that reason, I find that photography is not an interruption of the present moment, but a way to make love to it.
Whether we purport that taking a photo is a rejection or embrace of the present moment, it is possible to reconcile each viewpoint by acknowledging that reflecting upon our captured moments is an experience in itself. Are we better off because we have tangible evidence of a moment? It must be so, as proven by the proliferating, increasingly democratized rate of taking and sharing of photos through the decades. We seem to evolve towards greater capture. Photographs provide a timeline, evidence of evolution of a subject, and it’s quite indisputable that knowledge of history is valuable. Historical documented evidence of time passing, of existence occurring, directs our future actions and survival. Photographs provide us such documentation, constructing a timeline of who we are as people and members of a greater society. Akin to a visual diary, photos allow us to reexamine and process life in all its phases and iterations. The act of reflection is an exercise in sharing, discussing, remembering, and even bonding with others. We connect a little deeper when we reflect with others, however subtle. We may never remember an occasion so clearly without the aid of photos. If Sontag is correct and the capturing an image is indeed a rejection of present experience, then the photograph is the souvenir rewarded by a brief sacrifice of total presence; a gift that is accompanied by reflection and reminiscence as an experience in itself.
Overall, with every photo we take, we imply that the preservation of a moment is slightly more valuable than a fully immersed experience of it. For the most part, we have come to accept this–perhaps aimlessly and carelessly so–as we increasingly view the act of taking a photo through how it will contribute to our social media presence or portfolios. What remains to be solved is what exactly makes a moment so worthy–or contrarily, so unfit–to be captured. Some believe this momentary view of reality through the lens can be of immense benefit, as it may allow us to cope, process, remember, and extract meaning from life. Perhaps the concept of photography is the manifestation of our existential human angst–a desperate attempt to cling onto a fleeting, impermanence of reality. Mortal souls, mortal moments. The avid photographer is the memory-hoarder; and it’s permissible, it’s how we deal with our corporeal transience. Some moments simply beg for a tangible extension of their existence for whatever reason, and amazingly, humans have contrived the tools to do so.
Sources Referenced
Collins, Gillie. “Doug DuBois and the Photography of Family.” Guernica, 5 Dec. 2016,
http://www.guernicamag.com/gillie-collins-doug-dubois-and-the-photography-of-family-2/.
Goldin, Nan, et al. “Afterword.” The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, Aperture Foundation, 2012.
Goldin, Nan. “Buzz and Nan at the Afterhours, New York City. 1980: MoMA.” The
Museum of Modern Art, 2020, http://www.moma.org/collection/works/102156.
Sontag, Susan. “In Plato’s Cave.” in On Photography, Picador, 1977.
