ABSTRACT
The photographer Walter Curtin (1986), who lived through much of the 20th century, once said he was waiting for the day when he could simply blink an eye to take a picture. He would see something, blink, send the electrical impulses down his arm, and transfer the energy of what he saw through the touch of his fi ngertip to sensitized material. I often wonder how our perceptions of such ethical issues as photographic intrusion, the gaze, or even digital manipulation might shift if we removed the camera from the process of seeing and image making. Would the instant of recording light refl ected from people and things become more credible or less so? Would photography, or “light writing,” be viewed as more of an extension of human perceptual processes than a process of constructing false realities? Would seeing and creating images be considered processes of thinking and being, parallel with writing words, rather than problematic exercises of power or deception?
