Week 12 Positive Images

 

 Week 12 Positive Images



Photographs frequently serve as alternatives/enhancements to reality, such as wish fulfillment, idealized models, and what the late Raymond Williams could have referred to as subjective pictures.' Images tossed into the future cast a visual guidepost ahead of us for what we aim to become.

Similarly, subcultures that are frequently underrepresented, misrepresented, or unrepresented struggle with a paucity of images that do not correctly reflect either their perception of existing realities or their ambitions for future realities. I can't think of another reason for the outpouring of emotion - much of it splenetic and censorious, sadly - that greets all but the most bland depictions of lesbians, gay men, blacks, and other socially excluded peoples.

In consequence, we must learn to look at representations for both what they forget and what they recall; photographic absences ('forgetting') and photographic presences ('remembering') are both equally significant. Ordinary photos, such as advertising for beauty goods, are equally important for what they 'forget' (class, color, sickness, old age, poverty) as they are for what they 'remember' (youth, health, riches).

Similarly, countercultural or subcultural positive images suggest a complicated 'forgetting' of current realities - a resistance to the terrible realities of war, helplessness, or poverty, for example - and a'remembering' of viable alternatives: peace, security, and riches. As a result, dismissing positive pictures as emotional or old-fashioned is foolish - or highly cynical. To do so is to treat them as if they didn't make any arguments, didn't represent any goals, and didn't reflect any current battles.

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