Megan Kelly-- Thomas Bernhard

This quote interests me because I have never thought of photography as "the greatest disaster of the twentieth century." In reality, this quote does have a lot of truth about people in photographs as "nothing but pathetic dolls, disfigured by recognition, staring in alarm into the pitiless lens, brainless and repellent." This is the same for many cliché landscape photos which have no depth or meaning behind them other than a pretty place. I feel that many photographs do this, but then it makes me think of the distinction between art and a mere cheap photo taken without thought. Although Bernhard feels that photographs distort reality and that this false reality will take over the world, he still cannot help but see the truth underneath of the distortion, which shows that the photograph has done some kind of justice to the subject. This quote also reminds me that photographs can never be the real thing and that it is important to spend more time being present, rather than trying to capture everything on film, because a photo can never fully portray a person place or event.

Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian writer. He wrote about death, social injustice and human misery. He was pessimistic about modern civilization. One of his works, "Woodcutters" was seized by police for ridiculing a public figure and another one of his works brought about violent protests. Bernhard died in 1989 in his home in Austria and his house is now a museum full of a lot of his shoes.