Artifice – Lies, Damned Lies and Photography
Guy Tal and Jim Goldstein swapped blog posts this morning to talk about photography and reality and why the former doesn’t imply the latter. Their conclusions are controversial to say the least and I wanted to talk about the issues to try and get to my own viewpoint.
Guy Tal on Jim Goldstein’s Blog
Jim Goldstein on Guy Tal’s Blog
The posts were a reaction to “This Photo is Lying!”, an article on Outside Online by Rob Haggart, where it’s argued that ‘manufactured’ photographs will trivialise the impact of photographs taken in ‘real’ conditions. The core of the argument was about a guy who manufacters ‘amazing’ surf photographs by pasting in skies and new waves, etc. Also raised are Art Wolfe’s Migrations, where he pasted in new animals (even from zoos) and concludes that a when the unspoken contract between the photographer and the view is broke, it is difficult to renegotiate.
Guy takes issue with Rob’s article, stating that no other artists are held to a standard of ethics in the same way that he is suggesting that photographers should be and Jim takes point with Rob’s implicit suggestion that photographers should be limited in their artistic freedom.
Both Guy and Rob take reasonable points of view to an extent but there comparison with writing is one that is missing a little context. They’re right that noone expects veracity in a fantasy novel but, as Rob points out, if you write a piece as non-fiction and it’s exposed as fabrication, you will have a backlash on your hands. But photographs aren’t divided into ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ and neither are paintings.. However, I would take the point that there is an expectation of ‘non-fiction’ in photography and an expectation of ‘fiction’ in painting.
However, there is a more worrying conclusion that can be drawn from Guy and Jim’s comments. Guy says he doesn’t think Rob is suggesting labelling pictures that have been digitally altered and one can only assume from both peices that Guy and Jim are advocating the point that any photographer may make any digital manipulation of their photographs without any ethical or moral worry.
This concerns me.. I know that many photographers have made manipulations to photographs from the very start of photography (Ansel removed some clouds from Moon over Hernandez for instance) but I beleive that the unspoken contract I talked about earlier does exist and once a viewer discovers that a photograph that they were impressed with was created artificially, then dissapointment will occur. However, that dissapointment will be carried over to every other picture that they see within a related genre.
For a wildlife photographer, a book like Art Wolfe’s Migrations, once spotted as containing fakes, will raise questions about the veracity of all the rest of that photographers pictures. However, for a casual observer, the veracity of all wildlife photographs is damaged. The sense of potential wonder when they next see an amazing wildlife picture will be diminished.
So what do we do? Well, we need to work out when a work of art stops being non-fiction and becomes fiction. Well we can take some cues from the written art. Embellishments to non-fiction books are honoured as long as they don’t substantially change the reality of the story. A historic novel may paraphrase narrative but not facts. The photographic equivalent may be that removing a few clouds or cleaning up some rubbish are OK but adding a new tree or a new sky possibly not.
There is a generally accepted criterion that is often quoted in landscape photographers websites/books.. “Subtracting items that aren’t ‘fixtures’ is sometimes OK.. adding is usually not.” For instance, cleaning up a walker in a red top is OK – adding an extra river is not; cleaning some detritus off a beach is OK.. removing an island is not; removing a bush from the foreground is possibly OK?.. adding a reflection to a still lake, probably not?
Someone will probably say ‘Leave it to the photographer to work out what is acceptable’, but most beginner photographers are heavily influenced by there heroes and I would say it’s up to those heroes to set some standards that they wish to be judged by.
I should add that I’m not trying to ‘police’ photography but, just like the world of literature, I would advocate a ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ section and then let the artist decide what they want to do and then the audience to call them on it if they think it’s wrong (just as in the case of James Frey).
Guy ends his post with ..
“People can be taught to distinguish between the documentary, the fictional, and the symbolic.”
I would disagree – if they could do this then we would not need the aforementioned fiction and non-fiction sections in our libraries. The difference between fact and fiction is an important one.
Just to conclude. I can see where Jim, Rob and Guy are coming from and, again, this is all a grey area. I’d also like to thank Rob, Jim and Guy for creating some stimulating discussion about photography.
Other interesting links..
Art Wolfe – Blog response to Douple Exposure
The Atlantic Review – Art Wolfe vs Galen Rowell
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