the social function of photograph

Reading this piece of historical text on photography makes me realise one of the most basic function of photography; the social function.

Most of the time I’m not being aware of this kind of social function. At times I think that photography would be part of me trying to create my whole individual, closed, safe, personal world. Photography is a private conversation between the world and the photographer. And then this conversation has become a liberated kind of conversation. The photographer gave birth to the life of the photograph in-itself. Once the photography is being produced, it’s not up to the photographer to determine the life (and death) of the photograph. It has its life of its own.

This matter is being deepen by the condition of online sharing. The life of the photograph gains its own private life through the network; the Matrix you might called it. The network becomes the space for the photograph. In its circulation, albeit the control or the privacy setting from the photographer (or the online submitter of the photograph), the photograph becomes its own unified material.

nah…I might continue that discussion later after I read my recently found literature on ‘the concept of non-photography’ by François Laruelle. the french philosopher I just found recently… . difficult, challenging kind of reading.