{"id":2973,"date":"2012-11-21T07:23:56","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T12:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/2012\/11\/observation-as-authorship\/"},"modified":"2012-11-21T07:23:56","modified_gmt":"2012-11-21T12:23:56","slug":"observation-as-authorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/2012\/11\/observation-as-authorship\/","title":{"rendered":"Observation As Authorship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I came across an article in FORBES by Jonathan Keats describing the work and outlook of photographer Joel Sternfeld, best known for his pioneering color photography back in the 70&#39;s:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#0160;Sternfeld recognizes the passive-aggressive coerciveness of pictures, and enlists their manipulative power. \u201cYou take 35 degrees out of 360 degrees and call it a photo,&quot; Sternfeld observes. &quot;No individual photo explains anything. That\u2019s what makes photography such a wonderful and problematic medium.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yet&#8230; we remain all too confident about our unmediated vision, which is also inherently selective, limited by when and where we\u2019re looking. Sternfeld\u2019s pictures remind us that, like a camera, our eyes are essentially passive. Like photography, observation is an act of authorship.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><br \/><\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"tpad-img-center\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/6a01156f6c1fc1970b017ee5792e7a970d-800wi\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"2334\" class=\"asset  asset-image at-xid-6a01156f6c1fc1970b017ee5792e7a970d\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/6a01156f6c1fc1970b017ee5792e7a970d-500wi.jpg\" title=\"2334\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I came across an article in FORBES by Jonathan Keats describing the work and outlook of photographer Joel Sternfeld, best known for his pioneering color photography back in the 70&#39;s: &#0160;Sternfeld recognizes the passive-aggressive coerciveness of pictures, and enlists their manipulative power. \u201cYou take 35 degrees out of 360 degrees and call it a photo,&quot; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-creativity","category-nature","category-new-paltz-ny","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}