The Embodiment of Photographic Imagery Through the Lens of Time, Light and Memory

Abstract

The photograph has its own unseen and implied past and future. The lens of memory accesses both the conscious and subconscious thoughts of its creator and audience. The photographer utilizes memory as an embodied experience in the construction of the photograph. Memory is filtered through the prevision experiences, assumptions beliefs, and cultural biases of its creator. This paper is a theoretical discussion about the way memory, experience and vision can connect the photographer to their photomechanical device, the camera, as an extension of the body. capturing time, light and memory shapes new states of beings and opens possibilities whereby the improbable and the impossible are envisioned as an embodiment of the photographers past, present and future imaginings. In field of visual art and design education, students must develop skills as inventive designers and photographers who can connect to their embodied past. For the students to achieve embodiment of the image, they need to have control of the technical and aesthetic elements of the photographic medium through the lens of time, light and memory.