An archaeological approach to photography - media archaeology, focusing on medium as mode of engagement;

also serving as notes for Archaeography - the class.

---

Points

• the camera is an architecture - an arrangement of subject, light source, observer, so as to transform three into two dimensions
• the camera is a clock for making images
• the camera is thus a place-event
• different architectures/temporalities imply different modes of engagement between subject and observer - from large format ground glass to the 35mm SLR prismatic viewfinder, to the pixelated screen of the digicam - from site to studio
• as with the photograph, standards and infrastructures were quickly established after 1839, though they have undergone significant evolution - with the development of 35mm cameras, for example, and, of course, digital

---

rather than treat the camera as a technical instrument for making photographic images

the camera is best understood in terms of long-standing relationships with building and space

the camera is an architecture

(with architecture understood as place/event)

camera obscura

the camera is a room/box - an enclosed space

• with a window/opening and a means of closing and opening this aperture

• and with some means of record/fixing a projected image

- this can be a hand and pencil

- or some chemical/physical means

• people/objects/props/actors act in and around this space

and the purpose is to enhance senses/experience

---

implied here is a history of photography that goes back to the camera obscura in Graeco-Roman antiquity

---

there are different ways of configuring these relationships

so different kinds of camera involve quite different arrangements of these elements

- different architectures, experiences

- different stagings

- different modes of engagement

this is a way of understanding the differences between

the 35mm miniature camera, the professional SLR, the large format field camera ...

miniature cameras revolutionized photography; increased mobility, made field photography more feasible

larger cameras have better resolution, but create different dynamic between photographer and subject

see the camera - modes of engagement

---

the camera is a means of translating 3 into 2 dimensions

this conditions/constrains the possible relationships within the space and implies certain temporalities

- the camera is a clock for making 2D images out of 3

---