About Time: Photography and Temporal Realism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54103/2039-9251/32277Keywords:
new theory of photography, indexical icon, temporal realism, time-restrictionAbstract
Traditional temporal realism, a characterisation I introduce here, is the view that a photographic image is temporally indexed to an event that occurred at the time the image was created. Adherents include Roland Barthes, André Bazin and Kendall Walton. Time-restriction is a sceptical problem for this view: unique among visual arts, photography cannot produce images of scenes in the future or distant past. I reject the traditional view and present a revised account of temporal realism. Using Dawn Wilson’s multi-stage account of photography, I refute the imprinting model of photography that lies behind traditional photographic realism and with it the view that photographic images are temporally indexed icons. Discussing forensic astronomy of a photograph by Ansel Adams and a painting by Claude Monet, I argue that revised temporal realism comes without time-restriction.
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