Photography, the Continuity of Modern Iconography

Iconography has profound origins in human’s perspective and understanding of the world. Ancient murals, Christian religious icons, and eventually the manifestations of the modern age, have been created and used in the same quality in human cultural life. They have almost the same ultimate destination and goal that can be detected in them. Iconography has constantly been accompanied by  a kind of fear, to dominating what can happen in the future, and, in order to avert disasters and death, and to achieve forgiveness, prosperity and bliss. After the invention of photography, by putting the photographs alongside the icons which in some cases are derived from religious texts, not only does photography introduce itself as an iconography device, but it has also been influential in producing paintings iconographies with creation of the photographic realism. The main question is that how photography especially those about the social issues and among them the private and family photos, as a modern medium has an iconic origin, and how photography is able to have an unrealistic and metaphysical usage in the context of today life with its inherent characteristics being clarity, accuracy in details, signifying the being-there (dasein) of the referent and as a result, the photographic realism? This issue can be studied based on the most important theories of photography in the twentieth century. It is concluded that photography, in its philosophy and existential position, not only has carried on the iconic characteristics of the past, but has also has emphasized its originality and textual identity more broadly, so that it has given a photographic originality to modern iconography.