GRE READING COMPREHENSION OF THE WEEK

(1)	Picture-taking is a technique both for annexing the
	objective world and for expressing the singular self.
	Photographs depict objective realities that already exist,
	though only the camera can disclose them. And they
(5)	depict an individual photographer's temperament, dis-
	covering itself through the camera's cropping of reality.
	That is, photography has two antithetical ideals: in the
	first, photography is about the world, and the photogra-
	pher is a mere observer who counts for little; but in the
(10)	second, photography is the instrument of intrepid,
	questing subjectivity and the photographer is all.
	These conflicting ideals arise from a fundamental
	uneasiness on the part of both photographers and view-
	ers of photographs toward the aggressive component in
(15)	"taking" a picture. Accordingly, the ideal of a photogra-
	pher as observer is attractive because it implicitly denies
	that picture-taking is an aggressive act. The issue, of
	course, is not so clear-cut. What photographers do can-
	not be characterized as simply predatory or as simply,
(20)	and essentially, benevolent. As a consequence, one ideal
	of picture-taking or the other is always being rediscov-
	ered and championed.
	An important result of the coexistence of these two
	ideals is a recurrent ambivalence toward photography's
(25)	means. Whatever the claims that photography might
	make to be a form of personal expression on a par with
	painting, its originality is inextricably linked to the pow-
	ers of a machine. The steady growth of these powers has
	made possible the extraordinary informativeness and
(30)	imaginative formal beauty of many photographs, like
	Harold Edgerton's high-speed photographs of a bullet
	hitting its target or of the swirls and eddies of a tennis
	stroke. But as cameras become more sophisticated, more
	automated, some photographers are tempted to disarm
(35)	themselves or to suggest that they are not really armed,
	preferring to submit themselves to the limits imposed by
	premodern camera technology because a cruder, less
	high-powered machine is thought to give more interest-
	ing or emotive results, to leave more room for creative
(40)	accident. For example, it has been virtually a point of
	honor for many photographers, including Walker Evans
	and Cartier-Bresson, to refuse to use modern equipment.
	These photographers have come to doubt the value of the
	camera as an instrument of "fast seeing." Cartier-Bresson,
(45)	in fact, claims that the modern camera may see too fast.
	This ambivalence toward the photographic means deter-
	mines trends in taste. The cult of the future (of faster and
	faster seeing) alternates over time with the wish to return
	to a purer past - when images had a handmade quality.
(50)	This nostalgia for some pristine state of the photographic
	enterprise is currently widespread and underlies the
	present-day enthusiasm for daguerreotypes and the work
	of forgotten nineteenth-century provincial photographers.
	Photographers and viewers of photographs, it seems, need
(55)	periodically, to resist their own knowingness.

1. According to the passage, the two antithetical ideals of photography differ primarily in the

a.	value that each places on the beauty of the finished product

b.	emphasis that each places on the emotional impact of the finished product

c.	degree of technical knowledge that each requires of the photographer

d.	extent of the power that each requires of the photographer's equipment

e.	way in which each defines the role of the photographer

2. According to the passage, interest among photographers in each of photography's two ideals can best be described as

a.	rapidly changing

b.	cyclically recurring

c.	steadily growing

d.	unimportant to the viewers of photographs

e.	unrelated to changes in technology