The view of photography as a mechanical process due to its dependence on technology has dominated many discussions about its role in the arts, disclaiming the medium as a form of fine art and expressionism. As John Berger phrases in Understanding a Photograph “In twentieth‐century terms, photographs are records of things seen. Consider them no closer to works of art than cardiograms.” When photography was first invented its purpose was mainly to document and reflect existing realities. An image was attributed value depending on its indexicality. In earlier photography images strove to be indexical, rather than artistic or interpretive. This notion generally had to do with the affordances of the medium. “By their nature, photographs have little or no property value because they have no rarity value. The very principle of photography is that the resulting image is not unique, but on the contrary infinitely reproducible.”– John Berger.
Source:
Berger, John. "Understanding a Photograph." The Look of Things (1972): n. pag. Web.
Berger, John. "Understanding a Photograph." The Look of Things (1972): n. pag. Web.