Today I finally received a long awaited battery charger for my digital camera - my camera has been virtually out of action since I lost the last one. I'm now enjoying the freedom of being able to experiment and muck around without having to pay for film. Photography is one of the most reality-based arts forms. Even those who try to be abstract within the form are constantly having to use real shapes and figures, whereas in sculpture, painting or poetry the artist is free to create works that bear little resemblance to the world most of us know. This enforced 'documentary' style in photography is both a weakness and a strength. Because it's easy to capture reality (it's all around us, after all) many do just that with little regard for aesthetic values or drama. On the other hand if one does incorporate those aspects, and has the skill to bring them across, then the raw frankness of the result can put other forms to shame.
There's something profoundly moving (even perhaps disturbing) about seeing an almost-reality on display. We get so immune to the different facets of the world that we live in - but when confronted with something nearly like it we sit up and take notice. Picasso is all very well, but he never allowed people to see things that were there all along for the first time. Film works on the same principles (technically and artistically): it isn't quite real but it's close enough to make us take a better look around. People see it and think Am I like that? Is that how it feels to go through that? What would I do if that happened? It's far more than entertainment. Good photographs and films both provoke questions and prompt us to look at 'the real thing' as we never have before.
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