Art and Prejudice: What Is The Real Truth In Photography?
Featured today is a guest blog post by photographer and friend Guy Tal. Guy has long been an inspiration in both his photography and writing. Our blog post exchange today touches on a subject discussed in an essay “This Photo Is Lying to You” by Rob Haggart in Outside Magazine that resonated with both Guy and I separately. After a brief exchange via email we decided to share our views on the subject with you, our readers, in the hope of generating a healthy debate within the photography community. Enjoy! We look forward to your comments.
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What would you think of someone claiming to be an art connoisseur berating and disparaging the validity of paintings by Van Gogh, Dali, or Monet? How about a self-described classical music buff proclaiming that symphonies by Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart are detrimental to the social value of all music? Such statements would likely be met with scorn and ridicule. And yet, a piece in a recent edition of Outside Magazine makes similarly outlandish statements against photographic artists, accusing them of damage to the practice of photography in all its genres.
In fact, the argument made in the article dismisses the philosophy and life works of giants from Alfred Stieglitz to Ansel Adams, not to mention countless contemporary photographers, as “lies” and “fakery”.
There’s a lot in the article that I disagree with, but one statement in particular is bothersome to me:
“No matter how forthright one is about alterations, fake photos cause collateral damage. They devalue the work of photographers with the skill and patience to capture awing images in real time.”
No they don’t. Do fiction writers devalue the work of investigative reporters? Do fantasy movies diminish the accomplishment of documentary filmmakers? Does science fiction cause damage to science? Further, is the implication that those who create art in the medium of photography are somehow less skilled or patient than their editorial counterparts? How insulting.
It is worth mentioning that the same issue of Outside features black-and -white images, images showing motion blur and lens distortion, and any number of other creative techniques making them what Ansel Adams would call “departures from reality.” And, of course, glamorized photographs featured in paid advertisements seem altogether exempt from criticism.
In a previous essay Idealizing the Landscape, I wrote: “Honesty is not a quality of images but rather of people; and comes into play in how the work is presented.” One would do well to avoid assigning moral values to inanimate creations. Images don’t lie. They can’t. For the same reason, images don’t tell the truth either. The only way to assess the documentary veracity of an image is by the trustworthiness of the people behind it: the photographer and the publication. When an image is misrepresented, the photographer is lying – not the image.
While one could plausibly make the argument for honesty in reportage, Haggart goes beyond the editorial and openly criticizes an art photographer (Ed Freeman) who fully acknowledges his methods and had never tried to pass his work as anything other than creative interpretations (and I may add – stunningly beautiful work of great skill and patience.) This is where the noble pursuit of “truth” ends for me, and prejudice rears its ugly head.
Photographic tools and images are every bit as versatile as paintbrushes and writing instruments. Just like one would not expect all written words to be indisputable truth, they can’t and should not expect every product of a camera to represent reality. In fact, as Mr. Haggart himself admits: “truth in photography has always been fuzzy (…) the camera always lies.”
The article states that “There’s a growing hunger for the truth.” Indeed. But what is the truth? Is it the misguided belief that all photographs represent reality? Is it not far better for consumers of imagery to become educated and to realize that the camera, like the pen or the chisel or the word processor, is an expressive medium and their trust in photograph may in fact be misinformed? Like it or not: that is the truth.
Rather than promote the Orwellian persecution of those whose photography ventures into creative expression, let this be the dawn of a new age of enlightenment. Consumers of photographic images must realize that while some are meant to represent true events, others are intended as works of visual art and symbolic metaphors. Failure to acknowledge the difference is simply embracing ignorance rather than trying to remedy it.
For us in the know – whether photographers, editors, curators, reporters or artists – the goal should not be to impose draconian limitations on personal expression (need we mention dark periods in human history where this was the case?) Instead, it is our duty to educate and inform.
Nobody expects to find accounts of actual events when reading fantasy novels, nor literal representations of real subjects in abstract art. People can be taught to distinguish between the documentary, the fictional, and the symbolic. Rather than assume our audience is ignorant or uncaring, we should earn their trust and faithfully represent our work for what it is – editorial or otherwise. Our mission should be to help deepen understanding, broaden horizons, and foster appreciation for a variety of expressive media. To assume that all people expect the same thing from photographs and can’t be bothered to learn the difference between reportage and creative expression is an insult to our audience.
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If you enjoyed this be sure to read my writing on Guy’s blog:
Photography’s Eternal Identity Struggle
Technorati Tags: Photography, Philosophy, Digital Editing, Photo, Manipulation, Art, Photoshop
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Guy, I thought your analogy to motion pictures (fantasy movies, documentary films) was particularly useful. I think its worth noting that even the film maker constructing a documentary is not presenting pure reality. He chooses just how much detail to go into, where to use oversimplifications and what scenes best describe what he is documenting.
Similarly in photography, there's no such thing as a true representation of an event – its two dimensional, with limited dynamic range, lacking actual motion and the context that goes with being there.
Ignoring the fact that images can neither lie nor tell the truth is a fundamental mistake.
To suggest that those who use digital techniques to communicate their vision to the viewer do damage to photography as a whole is outright rude.
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Without taking away the point of the text, it's worth mentioning that Mozart was accused of ruining music, and many of the great early 20th century artists were disparaged and occasionally even vilified for destroying art.
But yes, overall that screed was rather over the top. Not too surprisingly he seemed to mostly be worried about the perception of the images in his magazine specifically – he's not worried about the perception of photography, but of the perceived worth of the images he's paying for and publishing. His swipes at what I assume are competing publications felt a bit unnecessary.
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Hey Guy,
I wonder if your article would carry the same weight had you chosen musical artists like some of the bigger rap and hip hop artists of the last 20 years? Many of them have surely born the cross of ridicule you allude to; and many folks today would still argue their work had exactly the influence you deny.
I think you discuss the point well, but I think dismiss the journalistic quality of a photo. Of any photo. A photo does capture a scene – it's not merely an imagined thought (regardless how well some folks like might to say they “previsualized” the scene), like a painting might be, or a sculpture, or a song can be. A photograph is a recording of an actual scene; so it's not quite fair to draw a comparison to, say, writing fiction.
To say that an image can't lie is akin to saying a picture can't tell a story. I'd submit that a thousand words is quite a story, no?
I'll discuss this with you in person on a mountain someday. In the meantime, you could've made your point stronger, perhaps, by simply reiterating where the article in question was printed; Outside Magazine. hardly the last great bastion of journalistic integrity when it comes to representations of the great outdoors, eh?
Cheers
Carl
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[...] you enjoyed this, be sure to read my entry on Jim’s blog: “Art and Prejudice“. Share this [...]
I strongly disagree with the comment above about a photo not being an imagined thought. A good portion of my images are created based on a dream or imagined thought. They don't capture a recognizable scene, nor are they designed to represent the truth, except as it relates to my thoughts and feelings. It is quite fair to compare photography to writing fiction in my books.
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I actually agree with Rob Haggart's point in many contexts, although making them absolute statements would be going too far. Photographs differ from reality, however much of the power of photography derives from its assumed connection with the real world. This has been eroded by modern photo manipulation. The analogies that you use, and the onus that you place on the viewer do not seem adequate to me. Novels are easily identified as such by everybody by stylistic elements, if not by the outright mention “a novel” on the cover. A Jerry Uelsmann image can be recognized by anybody as a work of fiction, but not the Freeman's surf images. If you want an analogy, consider a particular genre, the memoir, and compare those which are truthful with those which are fictionalized.
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Hey Roberta,
Certainly a photo can take inspiration from a dream .. but for it to be a photo, the scene must actually be, it must exist; whether it's recognizable or not is perhaps the issue of the original article. One cannot however, photograph that dream. I can, on the other hand, sing (most of) what I hear in my head. But a photo must be of something that takes place outside of one's head – unless we're talking about X-rays.
Cheers
Carl
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Thanks QT! Your memoir analogy did make my main point though – a photograph/book neither inherently lies nor tells the truth. The people who created or published it are the ones who should be held to account. Freeman never made an attempt to mislead anyone. Where is the lie?
As for erosion of the connection to reality – I personally see it as a good thing. Think about polygraphs – would you want to be sentenced based on a polygraph test? Realizing the results may be flawed means we treat them with a well-deserved suspicion. Blind faith in photographs without considering their source can be downright dangerous.
Sure, it would be nice if we had a mechanism to accurately and fully communicate indisputable truths with no room for error or personal interpretation. I don't know of one. I do know photography is definitely not it.
And finally, there's more than enough in the language used in the article to show a strong personal bias. The author is not just expressing an opinion, he sets out to disparage through ad-hominem attacks. Assaulting well respected photographers in a special photo edition shows very poor editorial judgment, in my opinion. To me, the fact that it was even accepted for publication in its current form is a blemish to the magazine itself.
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Carl, do you really want to use words like “exist” here? Do people exist in black and white? Does motion blur exist?
If I make a photographic record from electrical pulses tied to brain activity during REM sleep. Have I photographed a dream? Did it exist?
Even if you go with the simplest definition of existence as something perceivable through our (limited) senses, the camera can still create things that don't fall into that category.
Take a step into deeper philosophical discussions of existence and you'll find it even harder to make a plausible argument.
There's a very narrow usage for images that “for the most part look like what one might have seen if they were there at the time”. And surely those are very useful for documentary purposes. But, the camera can go so much farther than that. Why impose arbitrary limitations on all uses based on one?
Guy
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Hey Guy,
I think the word “exist” is adequate; A scene, or an event, does exist – and yes, we can only measure these things as best we can, given our sensorial world, but such is life, no?
I use the point of actuality as a starting place – and that, I think, is where photography does differ from, say, painting, or writing fiction. For example, you asked “do people exist in black and white”? Well, ignoring the obvious history of that particular analogy for a moment, you slide by the premise here, that people DO exist. If I could draw, I might be able to, on the other hand, draw a creature which does not exist at all, beyond the scatterings of my thoughts. But a motion blur of a bear? Well, (a), the bear itself does exist, and (b), as I said in my recent blog, yes, if you've ever had a 500lb grizzly bear charge you, you'd agree that the word “blur” is awfully poignant – that's precisely what one sees. Well, to digress for a second – it's a weird paradox; the experience is both simultaneously crystal clear, sharp as a tack – unimaginably vivid, and yet also as streaking blur. The mind is an amazing thing, no?
I'd not propose to impose anything, least of all limitations. But I would point out that it's important to understand the cost of where we're headed. QT Luong actually mentions some of the same concerns. Photos do tell stories; and there's a chain of trust with all storytellers. I wrote about that issue here a few years ago. Without that understand trust, everything is lost.
Cheers
Carl
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I agree completely. Trust is a relationship with other living beings, not with inanimate objects. If I trust the photographer or the publication, I will assume an image is a literal representation. If I see a photograph in a tabloid I make no such assumption.
If you see a photograph of a UFO, do you accept it as proof positive of extraterrestrial life just because it is a photograph? Sure, *something* existed that reflected light to make a realistic-looking impression. Beyond that, any number of other factors come into play to determine trust.
Conversely, to Roberta's point, real objects can reflect light on a sensitized surface that will look nothing at all like what our own senses would have perceived. Is it somehow inherently less valid without accounting for its intented usage and context?
Guy
[Reply]
Just a few brief comments on this bizarre notion about “what photographs should and shouldn't do.”
First, thanks for the post.
Second, it is not the goal of my photography to “present objective reality” or some such nonsense. To the extent that it may be successful, it presents some bit of “my reality,” the things I look at in the world, the things that cause me to marvel, and the way I see them. If I just wanted to present “reality” I would not bother being a photographer – instead I would simply visit these places and look at them. (Which I do, by the way.) The fundamental argument here seems to be, when reduced to its essence, to an argument that good photography is no good.
Three, holding up Ansel Adams as an example of “realism” in photography clearly and fatally betrays the ignorance of the writer on a number of levels. First, and most obvious, I've never been seen a day when it was black and white out. According to people who follow the “reality only” school of photographic criticism, the first step should be to simply toss out all black and white photographs – what “manipulation” of the scene could possibly be more significant than removing all color? But worse, anyone who knows even a tiny bit about photography and Adams knows that he was a master of post processing – pre processing, too, for that matter! The naivete of a writer who would assume otherwise is almost embarrassing.
I could rattle on about this nonsense for pages and pages, but I'll stop here.
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“As for erosion of the connection to reality – I personally see it as a good thing.”
I respect you Guy, but I disagree with that statement. The only reason why I care about photography is the connection to reality and I think that is what draws most people to the artform whether they are a serious photographer or not.
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Richard, I don't expect for a second to have everyone agree with me. Respect is about all anyone could ask for so I appreciate it.
While I agree the connection to reality is important, I don't think it's any more or less important in photographic *art* compared to other art forms. Reportage is a different animal.
Guy
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QT excellent points. After reading your comment I can't help but think of the old saying “Don't believe everything you read in the paper.” Many turn to newspapers (or used) to for fact based news. The saying “Don't believe everything you read in the paper” came to be because of the unavoidable bias of a writer that finds its way into their writing. Similar to news articles every form of photography should be questions in a similar light. While we may strive for our photos to be fact based we still employ techniques that add impact or alter “truth” or “reality”. Many techniques we may not think of as manipulation such as altering perspective to make something seem smaller or larger than it actually is, but in the end that is altering the viewers sense of “truth”. Every person in this day and age should question what they see and read and challenge it. In fact most people I know do. It is well with in reason to expect viewers to educate themselves as time goes on and as visual techniques evolve.
I often think we in this era fancy ourselves as being special because of the rise of digital editing, but in fact it is no different now than it was 50 years ago. Back then people had to decipher similar visual illusions created with different techniques. Viewers will continue to be challenged, wowed and pushed to learn what is real and what is fake.
[Reply]
“Trust is a relationship with other living beings, not with inanimate objects”
Hey Guy,
Almost every mountain climber I know will disagree with this statement. I know of a number of native cultures whose beliefs similarly disagree with it.
You've argued convincingly that we can photograph subjects and events in such a way that they might appear markedly different to us on film/sensors than they may have to our eyes, but not that you can photograph a UFO.
Everything else aside, I think your 3rd sentence says it all, so I'll reiterate here; “If I trust the photographer or the publication, I will assume an image is a literal representation. If I see a photograph in a tabloid I make no such assumption”. Ill point out, though, that it maybe ought not be axiomatic that trust implies 'literal representation' – it works both ways; I might well trust a photographer and understand that the image is NOT a literal representation.
I guess I just don't like to see or hear of the dismissal about how watered-down impact becomes when so many folks become suspicious of the photoshop trickery involved (and I don't mean to belittle the skills and craftsmanship of good processing; a card shark is no less skilled, eh?)
Landscape photography almost always carries some factor of 'wow, what a cool place'; rarely does it not. To learn later, for example, that such a place does not exist, but was completely manufactured in a computer somehow lessens not only the value of photography, but even our relationship with real places and creatures; and this includes people as well (misogynism, bulimia nervosa, etc, etc).
As beings, not just artists and humans, but beings, we bear responsibilities; as artists we're equally responsible for the work we do as are scientists or trash collectors. Art is an incredibly powerful medium; and with power comes responsibility. Remember the song “Wonda Why They Call You Bit**”, by 2Pac, one of the pre-eminent black artists of the 90's? Or “Thug Passion“? Or “Me and My B*tch” by The Notorious B.I.G.? The misogynism present was incredibly pervasive. I'm not, of course, calling for censorship of photography, just as I wouldn't for music, but for a sense of responsibility among the artists (and this includes photo editors and publications). I wonder if the phrase “promote the Orwellian persecution of those whose photography ventures into creative expression” might equally apply to those women and men who stood up and said 'no more' to that kind of popular music?
Photography as art can powerfully express the beauty of the world we live within – and just as powerfully reduce it. Care and respect is warranted to make sure we don't do the latter.
Cheers
Carl
[Reply]
QT excellent points. After reading your comment I can't help but think of the old saying “Don't believe everything you read in the paper.” Many turn to newspapers (or used) to for fact based news. The saying “Don't believe everything you read in the paper” came to be because of the unavoidable bias of a writer that finds its way into their writing. Similar to news articles every form of photography should be questions in a similar light. While we may strive for our photos to be fact based we still employ techniques that add impact or alter “truth” or “reality”. Many techniques we may not think of as manipulation such as altering perspective to make something seem smaller or larger than it actually is, but in the end that is altering the viewers sense of “truth”. Every person in this day and age should question what they see and read and challenge it. In fact most people I know do. It is well with in reason to expect viewers to educate themselves as time goes on and as visual techniques evolve.
I often think we in this era fancy ourselves as being special because of the rise of digital editing, but in fact it is no different now than it was 50 years ago. Back then people had to decipher similar visual illusions created with different techniques. Viewers will continue to be challenged, wowed and pushed to learn what is real and what is fake.
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nice banner pic!
[Reply]
“Trust is a relationship with other living beings, not with inanimate objects”
Hey Guy,
Almost every mountain climber I know will disagree with this statement. I know of a number of native cultures whose beliefs similarly disagree with it.
You've argued convincingly that we can photograph subjects and events in such a way that they might appear markedly different to us on film/sensors than they may have to our eyes, but not that you can photograph a UFO.
Everything else aside, I think your 3rd sentence says it all, so I'll reiterate here; “If I trust the photographer or the publication, I will assume an image is a literal representation. If I see a photograph in a tabloid I make no such assumption”. Ill point out, though, that it maybe ought not be axiomatic that trust implies 'literal representation' – it works both ways; I might well trust a photographer and understand that the image is NOT a literal representation.
I guess I just don't like to see or hear of the dismissal about how watered-down impact becomes when so many folks become suspicious of the photoshop trickery involved (and I don't mean to belittle the skills and craftsmanship of good processing; a card shark is no less skilled, eh?)
Landscape photography almost always carries some factor of 'wow, what a cool place'; rarely does it not. To learn later, for example, that such a place does not exist, but was completely manufactured in a computer somehow lessens not only the value of photography, but even our relationship with real places and creatures; and this includes people as well (misogynism, bulimia nervosa, etc, etc).
As beings, not just artists and humans, but beings, we bear responsibilities; as artists we're equally responsible for the work we do as are scientists or trash collectors. Art is an incredibly powerful medium; and with power comes responsibility. Remember the song “Wonda Why They Call You Bit**”, by 2Pac, one of the pre-eminent black artists of the 90's? Or “Thug Passion“? Or “Me and My B*tch” by The Notorious B.I.G.? The misogynism present was incredibly pervasive. I'm not, of course, calling for censorship of photography, just as I wouldn't for music, but for a sense of responsibility among the artists (and this includes photo editors and publications). I wonder if the phrase “promote the Orwellian persecution of those whose photography ventures into creative expression” might equally apply to those women and men who stood up and said 'no more' to that kind of popular music?
Photography as art can powerfully express the beauty of the world we live within – and just as powerfully reduce it. Care and respect is warranted to make sure we don't do the latter.
Cheers
Carl
[Reply]
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