Documentary photographs: Are they representations of the real?

[Turtle]

Well this thread has been spectacularly derailed!

 

[wgerrard]

How do I know that any of you actually exist, and that you all are not some Server on the Internet having a dream?

Rats! Our secret is out.

Photographs do not represent reality. Except that a Photo might be real, and might look like somehting that the photographer saw through the viewfinder when they fired the shutter release. Except for digital photographs, might be the embedded processor of the camera having a dream. But probably not. As far as representing reality, too much information is lost in the capture of a narrow spectal range of information within a narrow field of view with a perspective isolated to a single viewing point over a highly finite temporal period to represent reality.

I think, honestly, that this is semantics. Yes, information is lost in the process of taking and producing a photo. But, information is lost in the link between our eyes and our brains. We see in only a portion of the spectrum. We can't see molecules and atoms. We can't see radio waves. So, if what our eyes record is not a representation of reality, what is it?

 

[35mmdelux]

A simple question. Are documentary photographs just representations of the real, or are they something else, too?

what is "real?" People have different perceptions of reality. Physicists aren't even in agreement on this one.

 

[zumbido]

Rats! Our secret is out.



I think, honestly, that this is semantics. Yes, information is lost in the process of taking and producing a photo. But, information is lost in the link between our eyes and our brains. We see in only a portion of the spectrum. We can't see molecules and atoms. We can't see radio waves. So, if what our eyes record is not a representation of reality, what is it?

In person we get a lot closer to whatever you want to call "reality", thanks to working with at least four (maybe five or six or ten) senses other than two-dimensional vision.

Really, a photo is unlikely to ever be a meaningful representation of "reality". The reality of a scene is largely determined by our experiential, emotional response to the totality of our surrounding at any given moment, and a photo--even when it's not deliberately leaving stuff out--misses 99.9% of that.

If what you mean by reality is: "these objects were in these places from this perspective", then a photo sorts of represents it, sometimes, but that's about it.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Bill- the eyes and senses take in a very small subset as well. This thread is a continuation of a discussion that took place thousands of years ago. The senses do not give an accurate portrayal of reality, but it is all we've got. I guess that has been my fascination with Infrared imaging for a long time. Extend the senses a little bit.

Another take on Reality.

And most people think the sky is blue.

 

[AgentX]

To say that all "documentary" photos are one thing or one way or another is pretty much folly to start with...

The question ignores context as well, which a sort of dark matter to any question about visual representation. Often forgotten, but pervasively influential.

So, to sum up... "No?"

 

[Bob Michaels]

It appears to me that this thread is a good textual documentary on the inability to have a meaningful philosophical discussion via the internet bulletin board format.

The more I read this, the more I realize I like my human interface to be face to face rather than electronic. I am feeling a need to go out now to meet and possibly photograph some people rather than debating the process.

 

[ebino]

Exactly. Photographers have to be selective to do this in the sense that they select moments in time and collate them into a body of work that may not represent a realistic average of that environment. This facet or 'angle' may be 'the point' of being there in the first place and so it is only natural that this 'element of reality' takes a prevalent place in the resultant body of work, or singular image. Entire exhibitions might amount to less than a second. Photographing large numbers of refugees that are not dying of hunger may be part of the reality, but if the piece is on the famine...

With my photographs, I try to convey 'a sense of understanding' that is derived from my subjective response to what I am photographing i.e. perception based. That's the only tether to reality any human being has, but it is still subjective and selective. distortion is also a subjective term and this comes down to a matter of conscience. Besides, reality is often stranger than fiction.... the finest bodies of documentary work simply don't need to stray far what would widely be considered 'reality.'

Documentary means factual, documentary photography is a style of photography that tries to describe something without any artistic and aesthetic blemish.

A passport photos is a documentary photograph because it needs to describe the face of the bearer as closely as possible.

that's it, there is nothing really philosophical or abstract about the term documentary photography.

 

[Jamie123]

It appears to me that this thread is a good textual documentary on the inability to have a meaningful philosophical discussion via the internet bulletin board format.

Certainly true. The problem is one cannot have any kind of philosophical by throwing one-liners at oneanother. That's why textual philosophical discussions are usually engaged in by way of essays and responding essays.

That's also the problem I have with the opening question. One cannot just throw a vague question like this into the round and expect anything other than noise to come of it. I realize there was probably no harm intended and I might've been a bit too harsh with my previous comments to the OP but I still think the original questions seems inflammatory. If the question is genuine then we at least have to know what is exactly meant by it and what probllems and concerns prompted the OP to ask such questions, otherwise it just sounds like he wanted to throw a rock into the bees' nest and watch the resulting commotion.

 

[damien.murphy]

Photographs are not truth, but photographs can contain elements of truth.

I can't remember who said it, but it sums up my views on photography as unbiased reality quite well. How any one person's view of life, or their images, can be held up as absolute truth is beyond me.

 

[Jamie123]

Documentary means factual, documentary photography is a style of photography that tries to describe something without any artistic and aesthetic blemish.

A passport photos is a documentary photograph because it needs to describe the face of the bearer as closely as possible.

that's it, there is nothing really philosophical or abstract about the term documentary photography.

I don't think documentary photography can accurately be labeled a "style" is is usually a way of doing something and I think documentary photography can be done in many different ways. It's probably more accurate to label it a genre. Also, I don't know what you mean by ''describing something without any aesthetic blemish''.

A passport photo is not the closest possible description of a face (whatever that means). It's a standardized way of depicting someone. Nothing more really. I suppose it's standardized in such a way that the perspective and facial expression in the person in the picture is fairly similar to the perspective and facial expression of the person in a situation where the two are usually compared.

 

[Vince Lupo]

'Art is a lie that tells us the truth'

Pablo Picasso

 

[ebino]

I don't think documentary photography can accurately be labeled a "style" is is usually a way of doing something and I think documentary photography can be done in many different ways. It's probably more accurate to label it a genre. Also, I don't know what you mean by ''describing something without any aesthetic blemish''.

A passport photo is not the closest possible description of a face (whatever that means). It's a standardized way of depicting someone. Nothing more really. I suppose it's standardized in such a way that the perspective and facial expression in the person in the picture is fairly similar to the perspective and facial expression of the person in a situation where the two are usually compared.

A photo cannot be a document on its own. The same way that a passport photo needs a passport.

The limitation of the medium, namely photography makes it impossible to produce factual documents without any context or supporting material, hence the term documentary style is a more appropriate term than pure documentary.

Artistic blemish is trying to make a 'documentary style' photo look beautiful/gritty/crop/manipulate and so on.

 

[Turtle]

Bob M is spot on.

IMHO this thread has become the playground of the pedant, splitting semantic hairs that have no real relevance to the spirit or intent of the OP. Hey, how about we pretend we are human, accept the limitations of that, then answer the question again! If we extrapolate from this thread we should refuse to answer any thread posed questions for fear that the OP might not be real or that we might not exist after all.... Come on guys, grow up! You had your chance to show how you are smarter than everyone else at school!

The below quote I disagree with. I don't believe documentary means this at all. The italicized definition below is from an online dictionary seems in keeping with what I suspect most people would think:

Movies, Television . based on or re-creating an actual event, era, life story, etc., that purports to be factually accurate and contains no fictional elements: a documentary life of Gandhi.

I still believe the issue being asked about is whether documentary photographers adhere to the spirit of this, or deviate substantially either by selective photography (i.e. non representative, yet represented as representative of a whole), deliberate omissions, or by distortion (i.e. influencing the subject matter (moving things, asking people to do things for the camera etc).

It seems its the same people who just bend these threads off topic time and time again. I thought this was going to be an interesting thread 😕.

Documentary means factual, documentary photography is a style of photography that tries to describe something without any artistic and aesthetic blemish.

A passport photos is a documentary photograph because it needs to describe the face of the bearer as closely as possible.

that's it, there is nothing really philosophical or abstract about the term documentary photography.

 

[ebino]

I think we should totally disregard the original question and focus on the discussion at hand, what constitutes a documentary photograph? what is documentary photography? is it an end in itself or simply just another style of photography? These are some of the issues that most of us might find beneficial on a theoretical level.

 

[rxmd]

A photo cannot be a document on its own. The same way that a passport photo needs a passport.

I have on my wall a few Egyptian passport photographs taken in the 1970s. A friend gave them to me. He made an exhibition from the pictures he found in a drawer of a photo studio that had closed shop.

They were clearly meant to be glued into a passport, and I guess copies probably were, but none of mine is.

I like them for the way people dressed up formally, as if for a great occasion.

The limitation of the medium, namely photography makes it impossible to produce factual documents without any context or supporting material

You can make that distinction, but it becomes useless rather quickly. Any document of any kind needs context and supporting material. The whole point of having documents in the first place is that they document something for somebody.

For example, a birth certificate is just a piece of paper, unless you know that (a) this is a valid kind of document, certifying the birth of a person (context), and (b) that whatever seals, stamps, names, signatures etc. you have on it are authentic (supporting material).

In my opinion there is nothing special about photographs here.

 

[Jamie123]

IMHO this thread has become the playground of the pedant, splitting semantic hairs that have no real relevance to the spirit or intent of the OP. Hey, how about we pretend we are human, accept the limitations of that, then answer the question again! If we extrapolate from this thread we should refuse to answer any thread posed questions for fear that the OP might not be real or that we might not exist after all.... Come on guys, grow up! You had your chance to show how you are smarter than everyone else at school!

Look, I'm all for refraining from getting into any kind of pseudo-Cartesian doubt, phony solipsism, epistemic relativism etc. etc. I'm all for keeping the discussion at a level everyone can follow. Nevermind that the OP seemingly tried to invoke such 'academic' arguments with his (utterly confusing) phrasing of the question. Nevermind that the OP basically answered his own question affirmatively by saying "is it just [that] or is it something else, too".

But even then, what is the question exactly? I'm honestly confused. Is it a simple question about the possibility of unbiased documentary photography? Or is a question about representational problems of the photographic medium per se?