Photography

In the article by David Macdougal"Photo Whallahs" An Encounter with Photography, the author sets out to explain his film about the ways in which photography is incorporated in culture and facilitates meanings, indexed within the culture itself.  To facilitate this idea he and Judith Macdougal went to India where the scenery is vivid and visually rich for photograhing to to take place.  India is also a country where individuals have only just begun using personal cameras, so what they document or create and how is of importance to anthropology. 

In an interview, the philosophy behind the film and methods are seen  as well as the culture which was studied.  In Mussoorie the filmmakers noticed that people flock to cameras happily. I find it interesting that they are interested and open to being photographed, because of the intensity at which we shun photos in the U.S.  This self conscietiousness may be due to the high standards of beauty and the difficulty of this attainment.  We also index photography in a way that is scientific (documenting) or as art both of which include a quest for a transformative property of a person or a scene.  How we act according to social abstractions, and dispositions placed on us by the institutions we are in and the vast number of abstractions and stratagems that we employ or follow and at which mold our identity in elusive ways exacerbate the the problem of finding self-hood in a modern society.  A lens placed on us might shine light on how we act which we are afraid is acting too much or not accordingly to what is socially permitted. 

The photo which is a second layer of information, is seen to heighten the essence of people or a scene, in Mussoorie.  It adds in some ways to the meaning in a truthful way or it uncovers some truth of a situation.  As the article states: "It presents, not represents."   Maybe this is what U.S. americans fear, that the level at which photography is used, is an analysis and a representaion of objective reality.  If a photo taken is a transformation and catches a glimplse of what we do not want others to see.  In an unmediated inversion the photo can be seen as a mirror to reality itself.