2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
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print this pageIs Photography Dying
Patrick Keough
Friday, November 06 - 9:00AM to 9:55AM
Clemson One Building
Photography has a rich and illustrious history and is a relatively new medium compared to other art forms. Painting has been around for over 30,000 years compared to photography’s relatively short history. Photography has also borrowed much of the visual language from painting and applied it for both composition and content translation purposes.
I personally believe our true goal as photographers is visually translating external /internal references (landscape, nature, people, architecture) and metaphorically (symbolically and/or blatantly) translating our expressive/emotional response to our subject matter into a conceptual bridge (path) for deeper awareness and understanding of the world around us spiritually, emotionally and/or intellectually. This can be accomplished realistically or in more abstract / conceptual ways.
I recently came across an article in The Guardian called “The Death of Photography: Are camera phones destroying an Artform?
“It’s really weird,” says Antonio Olmos. “Photography has never been so popular, but it’s getting destroyed. There have never been so many photographs taken, but photography is dying.”
One thing that strikes me in looking at much of the photography being exhibited and shared in Europe and here in the states is how devoid of emotion and soul much of it seems to be, at least that’s my opinion. I must admit, I did see some great and unique work in Bratislava, Poland, Berlin and Vienna recently, however a great deal of it seemed void of emotion and expressive content. It’s as if there is an emotional disconnect or distance between the photographer and the subject being photographed.
My presentation will attempt to explore these issues and essentially I want it to be a conversation / dialog with those who attend the talk.
https://keoughp.wordpress.com/
speaker
Patrick Keough
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