The Visual Power of Photography and Its Status as a Representation

Abstract

I shall introduce a hermeneutic perspective and photography analyses from visual theory to the debate concerning the status of photographic representation (together with film, as it is based on the photographic method) which continues within Anglo-Saxon aesthetics and analytical aesthetics. I mostly confront Roger Scruton and Gregory Currie’s thoughts on the photograph and its object (source), representation-by-origin and representation-by-use with Gottfried Boehm’s concept of aesthetic nondifferentiation, and Georges Didi-Huberman’s analyses of photographs. This shall allow me to identify the two aspects of photography (independence of an individual object and visual dynamics of an image) which have a significant impact on the status of photography as a representation and on the potential of cinematographic creation as a story told through images.