Does photo and video have any use? To who and what can they be used for? Who still looks at the photos of our grandparents? They are only fleeting flashes of light that cannot testify to the complexity of a bygone past.
Why should it be different with the avalanche of photos, videos, reels, shorts, that are published every day? The shorter they are, the less they tell a story, the one with a capital H. Taken out of context, these images are often nothing but illusions intended to transpose their author into a reality more enviable than his own. A factory of lies that can never rewrite a daily life.
And yet these images have a reality. They are facets of the person who makes them, of his emotions, of his ideals. They may also be sources of reflection, perhaps of inspiration, for the people who look at them. The photo is then used as a means ofartistic expression.
The expression implies a language, or at least a syntax. This language exists in the image. Composition, colors, blurs and lightings play on the meaning of the image and contribute to raise the image to the rank of art.
To get the best results, photography and video require good technical skills. The mastery of light systematically requires the knowledge of the links between diaphragm, pause time, sensitivity and sensor size. Every year, new features have appeared that broaden the field of discoveries: HDR, stabilization, photographic stacking in astrophotography. Knowing your equipment is essential.
It is perhaps through this technique that history is revealed the most. Black and white films and their imperfections have an old-fashioned charm that is easier to date than geological strata. The format of the images also testifies to an era. The square format, brought up to date by Instagram, recalls another era, that of Kodak’s 126 format and before that Leica’s 135 format.
The photo, the video thus mix many skills and sensitivities that make it an exciting field.