This idea is out there all the time and particularly been on my mind lately. Apparently I’m not the only one as these recent ruminations elaborate.
The first from Jim Casper on lenscultureweblog on the cover image of French mag Enjeux. The prejudice and political nuances of the image seem misleading at best.
The second is slightly older but has a far better title. At photodoto.com – photographers are visual liars delves into the concept of advertising, using an images to sell something, as an example as well.
And lastly, Hollywood Makeovers, Frame by Frame an NPR report covering the film industry is completely compatible with still photography today. This is a great synapsis of how an industry and the public in general have become used to this ‘evolution’ of truth. The idea that “some stars now have digital coloring written into their contracts” doesn’t surprise me at all. In fact, I’ve had a similar clause relating to ICC profiles of delivered files in our Delivery Memos for a years.
To quote photographer Kyle Cassidy,
“Photography is about lies just as much as it is about the truth. We use photography to tell partial truths and thereby to create an imaginary reality. Sure models look like that, but they look like that for 1/125th of a second, and sometimes after two hours of makeup. Sure the landscape looks like that, but only if you stand in a particular place. Sure she was floating three feet in the air, but not for a terribly long time.
In a world where truth can be so discouraging, we all like to be lied to a little about the way that things could be.”
In the end, this job/passion/art/drive to photograph is in it’s simplest form a means of translation. Just the way that high level political interpreters may slightly shift tenses & conjugations to better reflect the most minute inflections of a leaders intentions, it is our job to translate the world as it is, or as we see it, or as clients would like to portray it to an authentic two dimensional representation.
Perhaps my concept of translation is skewed due to a travel and language background but I’ve always felt this conviction. What’s the Czech proverb – learn a new language get a new soul. And it’s gaining prominence, even in the current Lowepro catalog as long time color man Eric Meola is quoted as,
“I found myself transfixed by those eyes. My own eyes became the translator, my way into other worlds; it was if I no longer held a camera in front of me. For the first time I couldn’t remember having made certain photographs, because I hadn’t made them. They had made themselves.”
As a location photographer, I think the best thing one can do is bring back 1/125th of the truth ….. and run with it.
