Sunday, September 19, 2010

Media as Means to Preserve Memories

Writing about my camera seems to be an appropriate post after my weekend. I spent the weekend with my Dad's family at my cousin's wedding. We took lots of photos to preserve memories and got some great shots of family throughout the weekend. Besides being able to send a message from one entity to another, media can save and preserve messages from the past. This is an important historical reference point that we would not have without media.

Obviously any medium can serve as a historical reference, but with the advent of the camera it reached another level. The photograph and camera were evolutions of the painting/drawing as a historical record. With my camera I was able to preserve memories of my cousins wedding and keep literal snapshots of that day with me forever. In comparison with older forms of visual preservation such as the painting, the camera sends a distinct message just by being a photograph. In this sense it is very similar to the argument that the medium is the message. The fact that I chose to use a camera this weekend was a very conscious choice which says that I did not have the time or talent to capture paintings or drawings of the occasion. It also portrays a more realistic image, capturing exactly what the viewer sees rather than leaving it up to my interpretation. In this case the medium was the message; and the content had a completely separate, unique message. 

2 comments:

  1. I like your connection of photos to historical references. It made me think of the history books we used in highschool that would always have painting of important figures from which ever era we were studying at the time. And then as time went on we would make our way towards more current eras and old black and white photographs would begin to surface. It makes me wonder what history books will say about our generation. Haha, or if history books will even continue to exist. They probably wont.
    And judging from your cousin's wedding dress (which is wicked pretty), it seems like the wedding was beautiful :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good job linking your personal experience with McLuhan's theory about media! Cathy and Michelle both also have interesting entries about photography and memory, don't know if you've checked it out: BabsonBao.blogspot.com; BabsonMcKelvey.blogspot.com 

    It'll be more interesting to see you bringing in specific examples of pictures you took last weekend (maybe) and make more detailed observation about the nature of the photographic medium.

    c.

    ReplyDelete