| Photography and Reference by Olivier Richon Prof |
| It is a common assumption that in order to photograph something, I first need a thing, and that the photograph is dependent upon an object in the world. Thus the belief that photography always references the world, and that photographs are never independent from their reference to things. The question of reference brings to the fore the question of the referent. Not an appealing word in itself, the referent is given this rather enormous task of accounting for the manner in which signs are linked to objects in the world. |
| Fox Talbot, in his early experiments with photography reports that “ In the summer 1835, I made in this way a great number of representations of my house…and this building I believe the first that was ever known to have drawn its own picture” This is a fascinating statement. The building draws its own picture, as if Talbot, in an uncanny alienation, is the spectator of an apparatus he sets in place. The long exposure may contribute to this, as well as the technique: a light sensitive paper is placed in the camera and slowly darkens. Around 1835, Talbot used no developer yet; the coated paper alone would react to light and would be fixed at a later stage. However, it is as if the subject, the house, is the maker of the image and the maker, the photographer, is the viewer of a process he initiates. |
| The inaugural subject in the history of photography is thus a house. The house conveys an architectural and visual metaphor. To some extent, it is a portrait in as much as it is a depiction of a place. The house is also an apparatus that brings to the fore an optical metaphor. Isn't Talbot's house, drawing its own picture, analogical to an other architectural space, that of the camera obscura, a dark room in which one can see a ghostly version of the world projected upside down upon a wall? [...] |
Olivier Richon is Professor of Photography at the Royal College of Art. A monograph of his photographic work, Real Allegories, is published by Steidl, Göttingen, 2006. |
Excerpt from 'Photography and Reference' by Olivier Richon. All text © Olivier Richon 2007. Full Version can be read in the soon to be released Photography Class Catalogue. |