The Spanish Civil War is often called the ‘first photographic war’. Photographers flocked to Spain. Photos were sent around the world by ‘wire’. Magazines published photo stories. Newsreels showed clips of military action and its consequences for civilian populations. Documentaries and Propaganda films were made and shown, though not always in the main cinema chains. Feature films (largely romanticised storytelling) were made.
Today we work (mostly) with digital cameras. Should we work retro and acknowledge the forms of film and image making used in the 1930s? Recently it has become commonplace to ‘colourise still images’ “bringing them to life” … but is this a closer to real life? Theoreticians have written widely on the subject of the photo-image and its relation to personal perception and social constructs – does this help or obfuscate the interpretation of history?
These articles discuss some of these questions both within the context of film/photo-making projects, First up The Crossing the Pyrenees film I made in 2012.