Mosaic Connections

Ritchin opens chapter four with a metaphor behind what John Swarkowski would call the dichotomy of photography, which is when photos fall into either a “mirror” category of self-expression, or a “window” category of images that represent the external world. Ritchin goes on to claim that there is yet a third category that was not yet discovered in Swarkowski’s time and is made possible through the expansion of digital photography. Ritchin calls this third category the “mosaic,” and states that it goes beyond the original dichotomy through multiple pathways and interactive multimedia. With today’s advancements in the digital realm, a cluster of pixels that make up one photo can be linked to a whole set of new medias like music, video, or even more photos. Ritchin argues that this allows for greater interpretation than before, but I kind of feel like it creates an over load of information. I guess I prefer to keep things simple, but I think that as more linked media is added to a piece of a single work, it begins to limit how far the interpretations can reach.