Images move us to act – as last week’s episode of Four Corners has shown. Our government has gone to great lengths to suppress photos that humanise asylum seekers – but when they seep out, empathy is aroused.
Whether it’s through Facebook or Snapchat, images and videos are changing how we communicate. But as words become more trivial, our attention, our creativity, and even our empathy may be at stake.
Why do so many people take safety risks or abuse wild animals for the sake of a photo with them? In one researcher’s view, scientists may encourage this trend by sharing their own wildlife selfies.
Migrant children may feel uncomfortable or shy trying to verbally explain their experiences. Photography is a powerful medium through which to make their voices heard.
After a selfie-snapping man was mauled to death by a bear, a psychologist wonders why people feel so compelled to capture and share images of themselves.
Hoping to avoid the pitfalls and tropes of drug genre photography, documentary photographer Aaron Goodman spent a year following three addicts enrolled in a heroin-assisted treatment program.
William Yang has, maybe more than anyone else, shaped Sydney’s view of itself. A new book, William Yang: Stories of Love and Death, collects his iconic photographs, with scrawled annotations.
Snapping and sharing photographs has never been easier. But being inundated with images can have a host of unintended consequences, from heightened anxiety to impaired memory.
The NGV’s summer exhibition is curated to create a dialogue between Ai Weiwei and Andy Warhol, and this conversation operates on multiple levels on a variety of themes, and across time and space.
The title of Parke’s current exhibition alludes to a 19th-century faith in the camera’s mechanical vision as superior to human vision – while also complicating that assumption for modern viewers.
In the same week that Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon of Aylan al-Kurdi made the headlines, I’m reminded of another controversial image. In 1840, J M W Turner exhibited what would become one of his most famous…
Porn. Few words come with as many pre-loaded connotations and assumptions. So what are we to make of the rise of “ruin porn”? Should photos of urban decay brighten or darken our day?
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne