Photographed Testimony

 “The fundamental movement of modern times consists in conquering the world-as-picture,” Martin Heidegger

The forest fire on the Carmel Range took place after the final deadline for submission of photographs to the 2010 Local Testimony competition. Not being able to include photos of this event aroused a sense of missing out. The small number of photographs of the fire in this year’s exhibit is a reverberation of last year’s massive media covering. The same sense of frustration is present this year when the photographs of Gilad Shalit’s return from Hamas captivity could not be submitted to the competition. It seems that the “social justice” protest did well, for it is well represented in the exhibit.

This year, 8,000 press photographs were submitted according to predefined categories, with the objective of enabling maximal coverage of the events of the past year.

The photographs in the exhibit have a different presence than they had in the original. The photographs were enlarged and a new context created – both content-related and visual. The enlargement grants the press photo a new and additional exposure. Every photograph has a size conducive to maximal visibility. The new physical presence stresses details and characteristics that were not underscored in the original. The enlargement is dependent on both the original context and on the new, independent one. The way in which the photograph is exhibited, its size and qualities, all dictate different ways of viewing, which have been enhanced thanks to the digital age.

Press photography is one of the journalistic practices that creates images with the objective of telling a news story. The number of images that modern media currently transmits, seemingly builds an ever-increasing database of a historical photographic archive. However, work on this exhibit shows that an artificial attempt to produce a sequence of images that will breathe life into the events of the past year does not pass the reality test. In other words, foremost events are thoroughly reviewed as they transpire, which prompts the illusion that the event is etched on our memory. However, the media’s attempt to attract maximal attention to all events ultimately makes us forget, and does not enable the creation of a contemporary and hierarchal historical sequence.

Galia Gur-Zeev

Exhibition curator