I’ve spent way too much time in murky classrooms looking at slides,
slides, and more slides. I’m convinced that the entire academic field
of art history would grind to a halt without projectors, carousels, and
slides. But what is weird about looking at so many images is that I
find myself thinking that I know exactly what a sculpture or a painting
really looks like because I’ve seen a photograph of it. Photographs can
never tell you the full story of an object, landscape, or person’s
face, but they are convenient references for artists. The reality is
that most artists use source photos in some capacity when they work,
whether to jog their memory of a particular place and time or to record
specific visual details to incorporate in later pieces.
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