Truth in photographs

[bmattock]

Think about the extreme soft-focus lens or digital effect being used on Lindsay Wagner's TV commercials for "Sleep Number" mattresses. You might be for it or against it, but if you saw an unretouched photo, you'd probably not mind in this case.

 

[Leighgion]

I've concluded that photographs are full of lies, just like memories are.

Even a photograph that hasn't undergone any manipulation beyond what was necessary to make it is presenting only one frozen moment of one point of view, which is frequently very deceptive. Even our eyes lie to us quite often at the moment we see, and cameras don't see all that differently from our eyes.

The idea that photographs somehow innately represent truth unless tampered with is, I think, a modern myth.

Now that's not to say that there's no valid concerns in regard to heavily manipulated photographs in the media, but I feel that claiming that photographs have an inherit honesty is the wrong foundation to start that conversation.

 

[antiquark]

If (as some argue) an unmodified photo is a lie, then that means that everything is a lie.

Seriously, any argument you apply to an untampered photograph can be applied to any human activity.

 

[bmattock]

If (as some argue) an unmodified photo is a lie, then that means that everything is a lie.

Seriously, any argument you apply to an untampered photograph can be applied to any human activity.

Yes, it all depends on how you set your gate.

We both go to a baseball game and sit next to each other. I can promise that we did not watch the same game. Most things, we'll agree on. Some things we just won't.

Which of us is lying?

The truth is that the 'the game' was an event that happened, and everyone who observed it saw something different. None of them were objective viewers, and no recording of it was objective - even the cameras used to show closeups of 'foul balls' and so on offer different points of view that seem to say different things at times.

All we can try to do is to control for as many variables as we can, and to reduce the chances of outright tampering in cases where some semblance of objectivity is required. Forensic photographs used in police investigations come to mind. Even those are not 'true', but they generally meet a standard that is often accepted as 'true'.

Where we generally go astray is when we make assumptions based on our own desire that a photograph be an accurate recording and it turns out not to be one.

The level to which it is not 'real' can bother some more than others.

 

[MickH]

I'd like to post a big THANK YOU to DMR for posting that link. A very amusing diversion indeed.

 

[Merkin]

If (as some argue) an unmodified photo is a lie, then that means that everything is a lie.

Seriously, any argument you apply to an untampered photograph can be applied to any human activity.

I tend to agree with this. It is physically impossible for human beings to experience true reality without it being filtered, both physically through our senses, or mentally/emotionally through our thought processes. Photographs just have several more layers of filtration on top. IMO, if capital-T Truth exists, human beings are incapable, at this point of our evolution at least, of percieving it.

 

[peterm1]

Advertising is a whore. And there is no truth in it even when there is no image manipulation. Because it is essentially about sellin a lie.

But in art it does not matter. I care not whether an image has been manipulated for art so long as it does not hold itself out to be something it is not.

Other than this I believe in Keats.

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

 

[Chris101]

So if it involves monetary exchange it needs to be ethical, but what, artists have low morals anyway, so it's ok to use the medium deceptively? Photography relies on physical law - the image is made by certain photochemical and optical procedures. So to be photography, it needs to be done with those techniques. Once you use computers to manipulate the picture, it ceases to be photography. That's fine, and I like a lot of digital art. On the other hand, if the digital artist passes off their work as photography, they're cheating.

This isn't to say that digital tools such as digital cameras, scanners, computer controlled printers, smile detectors and the like cannot be used. It's how those tools are used that makes the difference.

 

[hitmanh]

Photography relies on physical law - the image is made by certain photochemical and optical procedures. So to be photography, it needs to be done with those techniques. Once you use computers to manipulate the picture, it ceases to be photography. That's fine, and I like a lot of digital art. On the other hand, if the digital artist passes off their work as photography, they're cheating.

This isn't to say that digital tools such as digital cameras, scanners, computer controlled printers, smile detectors and the like cannot be used. It's how those tools are used that makes the difference.

I couldn't disagree more. The format doesn't matter (ie film versus sensor, it's all just a bunch of data stored on different formats). Photography doesn't stop when the shutter fires, the processing and printing (including all the funky stuff you can do in the darkroom - both wet and digital) all add up to make the photograph. Photogrpahy is a process not a button click.

As for the topic. Photography has no inherent truth. It is a manipulation from the beginning. Whether that matters is purely down to how the photo is represented. Context matters.

 

[momus1]

There is, of course, no more truth to a photograph than there is to anything else. Photographers have been editing photos for 100 years, either in the darkroom or the computer. Why would you think it's an accurate representation of reality? But manipulating the image (or words or whatever) to deceive people is another thing. Just take it all w/ a grain of salt.

 

[bmattock]

Photography relies on physical law - the image is made by certain photochemical and optical procedures. So to be photography, it needs to be done with those techniques. Once you use computers to manipulate the picture, it ceases to be photography. That's fine, and I like a lot of digital art. On the other hand, if the digital artist passes off their work as photography, they're cheating.

This isn't to say that digital tools such as digital cameras, scanners, computer controlled printers, smile detectors and the like cannot be used. It's how those tools are used that makes the difference.

That's a lot of crap.

What you've done is package up your preferences and label them 'photography', and then exclude everything you don't like as 'not photography'.

If you called them 'my preferences' then I'd have no objection, they're your preferences after all, and we all have preferences. But you choose to put a fence around your preferences and give them a name that infers that's how everyone else should feel as well.

Photography is, and has been, a whole lot of things. If you were a student of the history of photography, you'd know that.

Words serve humans, humans do not serve words. If the definition of 'photography' changes because the medium changes, then it changes. When polaroid-manipulation came on the scene, the definition of photography expanded to include that. Man Ray's solarization, photograms, and all of the other external manipulations done in the name of achieving a particular effect - all photography.

So comes now a process for manipulating an image that you don't care for - and that, somehow, is not photography.

There is no immutable definition of photography. When the technology changes, the definition changes. Excluding your own dislikes from that description simply demonstrates your own prejudices.

 

[russianRF]

I mostly agree with BMattock, though I do take one exception to his post. There is indeed an immutable definition of photography; just look at the roots of the word: writing with light. Ansel Adams anticipated the coming of digital photography, and it was no less photography in his mind. Likewise, I would argue that digital photography is as much a part of photography as writing on a word processor is still basically an act of writing words, no more or less.

But, maybe I'm splitting hairs in BMattock's statement. Digital photography is indeed photography, and to say anything else really does just confirm personal prejudices and tastes.