Photography in Society, Advertising Photography, Publicity, Ethics and Moral Responsability

The photographic image can be a very powerful social motivator, showing situations where correction and appreciation are needed. Photographs may activate conscience and stimulate emotion, because they are solid evidence that something exists, or existed. On a broad public scale they may show need for social reform. People may question the power of the photograph to cause change, but I believe that this is possible. I have an optimistic opinion.

To speak of a photograph, generally it is viewed as a representation of the real, and to an extent it may even become the real. Susan Sontag says that photographs are probably the most mysterious of all objects that make up and thicken the environment we recognise as modern". Visual recognition in photographs may tell people of their place in the world, and give them an imaginary possession of it. Seeing tells people of their place within it by certifying experience with visual images. This also becomes a way of forging reality.

To take a singular photograph, and to relate it to the 'real' event, there always appears to be a void present. The photograph is simply an illusion of ultimate reality, or the evidence of a lost presence from which it was constructed. The full reality of 'being' at the time of photographic making is never fully transported onto film. The photograph is but a 'thin trace reproduction ' which has left its mark on film, and is no more than a 'transparent envelope' of nature. A photograph arrests the flow of 'real time', when it was made, so continually it always presents us with an experience of the past. The photograph holds or preserves the moment, and presents a realization of time discontinuity. Also, human memory is a residue of continuation, and functions similarly to a photograph, showing a disconnected isolation of time.

A comparison may be drawn between the two; photographs compare to memory and may be used to fill in memory gaps in order to create an illusion of reality. Thus photographs may help people to take possession of time and space, in which they are insecure. However, converting reality into images is also a way of denying experience. By placing a camera between persons and their environment they are creating their own visual representation of reality. Society has a mass consumption of photographic images, and photography is now regarded as social right. Photographs are used for many diverse purposes in many different levels of society, furnishing a vast system of (dis-) information. They provide solid evidence for research work and are used in Physics, Astrology, Medicine and Biology, to mention but a few.

On a powerful level photographs are used for social control in passports, identity cards or dossiers; or as a system of public information or publicity. Hundreds of publicity images frequently confront us, which we may briefly take in, remember or forget. They may stimulate the imagination by way of memory or expectation. Publicity is explained as a competitive medium and ultimately benefits the public (consumer), the most efficient manufacturer and the national economy. It is closely related to ideas about freedom; freedom of choice for the purchaser, freedom of enterprise for the manufacturer. Publicity is the visible sign of a free world. It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves or our lives by buying something more. It proposes to make us richer in a way, even though we become poorer by having bought it. publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed, and are, as a result, enviable, The state of being envied is what constitutes glamour. And, publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour. Publicity is always about the future image, making the present person envious of how he or she may become. Publicity is about social relations and happiness. It imposes a false standard of what is and what is not desirable.

Cartier-Bresson believes that "the intense use of photographs by mass media lays ever new responsibilities upon the photographer. We have to acknowledge the existence of a chasm between the economic needs of our consumer society and the requirements of those that bear witness to this epoch. This affects us all, particularly the younger generations of photographers. We must take greater care than ever to allow ourselves not to be separated from the real world and from humanity".