THE PHOTOGRAPHIC IMPERATIVE: PICTURE-TAKING, CAMERAWORK, AND THE LIVES OF PHILIPPINE IMAGES

Abstract

This dissertation examines the “photographic imperative,” at once the need and the obligation which many people (not only photographers) addressed when they see an object, observe a phenomenon, and witness an event.

The first chapter analyzes American colonial-era photographs using the optical unconscious as a visual reading methodology. The abundance of details in pictures may yield readings that do not abide by Orientalist representations. Chapter two looks at how newspaper and magazine images problematize place in relation to the viewer’s historically and culturally determined seeing eye. The penultimate chapter assesses the debates on the historical and social significance of the 1986 People Power Revolution triggered by the re-viewing of photos; people’s reviews revise history. The last chapter considers drug war photography in the Philippines in light of the crisis of witnessing in contemporary society.

Through an analysis of colonial-era pictures, magazine feature photo articles, coverage of a revolution, and documentation of the drug war, I draw attention to the complex processes of photographic production, dissemination, and reception in Philippine cultural history.