Amidst the more ease of use for photography among people, the presence of photo studio remains unshaken. The availability of exploration room for sitters and the ease it offers is one of the reasons for their existence. Now, photo studios became a "box of imagination" for sitters.
“Photo studio practices can be seen as an arena. Sitter, photographer, and photo designer are the players with each has different modalities,” said Irwandi S.Sn., M.Sn., when sitting for his doctoral promotion at UGM Graduate School on Wednesday (1/6).
In his dissertation, the lecturer from Faculty of Media Records Arts of Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI) Yogyakarta researched the photographic rhetorics of young girls in a photo studio in Yogyakarta. This is made against the background of the intention to understand how photographic arts, especially photo, is used as a media of persuasion for the people that are involved.
“This study is an effort to read the photographic rhetorics that are seen in photos by taking into account the artistic creation, role of sitter, photographer, and designer as an synergistic effort. In other words, the photography of studio photo is placed as a cultural material that is produced, realised, and understood in a certain social context,” said he.
The practice of studio photo photography still attracts the attention of young girls. In practice, however, photo designer and photography became the most dominant players when the sitter only has weak economic modals in the photo studio practices. So, whether aware or not, for a fantasy, sitters are willing to position themselves as and object of exploration for photographer and designer.
Young girl’s photos if seen from the viewer side still represent a man’s sight. Sitters place themselves as one that is seen and the attributes of sensuality of sitter is present dominantly in the photo,” he added.
He also highlighted the IT development in photography that affects the artistic creation that takes form in the photo arts. The development is not the only one that makes up the current artistic creation and rhetorics. The significant decrease in photo printing has forced players to do more than just selling the ‘extrinsic’ but also ‘intrinsic’ values of a photo.
He further said the crucial stage that determines the artistic form of photo no longer lies in the photo taking session but editing.
For Irwandi, this study is an attempt to discover the cultural reflection of studio photo practices, also to contribute to the discourse of photography studies. “This study is an attempt to contribute to the enrichment of the discourse on photogaphy studies in Indonesia that has focused more on artistic areas,” he said.