"The world today has been conditioned, overwhelmingly, to visualize. The picture has almost replaced the word as a means of communication. Tabloids, educational and documentary films, popular movies, magazines, and television surround us. It almost seems that the existence of the world is threatened. The picture is one of the principal mediums of interpretation, and its importance is thus growing ever vaster.
Today the challenge to photographers is great, because we are living in a momentous period. History is pushing us to the brink of a realistic age as never before. I believe there is no more creative medium than photography to recreate the living world of our time.
Photography gladly accepts the challenge because it is at home and in its element: namely, realism - real life - the now. In fact, the photographic medium is standing at its own crossroads of history, possibly at the end of its first major cycle. A decision as to which direction it shall take is necessary, and a new chapter in photographer is being made - as indeed many chapters are now taking the place of many older ones." - Berenice Abbott, 1951.
The momentous period is all but over, and the photographic medium has already taken a new direction, that of big-dollar advertisements and marketing. Nevertheless, I'm not completely convinced, and I find a need to question my own purpose for photography and the meaning it generates.
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