Criticizing Photography

Within this article Terry Barrett talks about the theoretical positions affecting photography today.  The first theory has to do with the reality of photography. It is thought that photography has this relationship with duplicating reality but there is much evidence that says a photograph can be changed based on artistic intent or the way it's presented.  Transparency also adds to the medium of photography. It is a way in which we can see through the photograph to see things that are not neccissarily in our presence. The rest of the reality and coventionalism theory ends with pictorial reality being rooted in culture. 

Next Terry talked about modernism and postmodernism.  Modernity is rooted in democracy, capitalism, industrialization, science, and urbanization. Post modernism works against modernism.  Onward in the article Barrett talks about Marxism and how representation effects what is represented. Then he talks about feminist theory and photography. Gender and sex are two different things that must be understood before one talking about feminist theory. Sex refers to the physical features and gender refers to what the culture defines as what it is to be male or female.