COLLABORATION
A Potential History of Photography
What do we learn when we look at photography through the lens of collaboration?
Most of the time, history of photography has focused on the photographer as an author without examining the participation of his or her subjects, consenting or not. Other participants in image-making also include editors, archivists, assistants, lab workers, translators, and spectators. My essay is dedicated to young Magnum photographer Bieke Depoorter who photographed Egyptians in their everyday settings then went back ,asking people to reflect on the images and write their thoughts and reactions over them. ”Simultaneously calligraphy and graffiti, decoration and defacement, the writings create new, hybrid objects.”
