The concept of truth in photography is something that has been strongly debated, along with the limits that photographers should go to regarding editing and altering images. Since the advent of digital photography and imaging editing software such as photoshop, photography has become even more subject to debates about truth, though photographs have been edited and manipulated to various degrees long before the digital age, from people using the photographic medium to create works of art in various ways, to images used for propaganda, photoshop hasn’t introduced the manipulation of images, just given new ways and most likely made it easier. As far back as the 1840 Hippolyte Bayard produced Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man Said to be the worlds first staged image, in response to the fame achieved by Louis-Jaques-Mandé Daguerre, Hippolyte having himself already invented direct paper positive process for pictures, but politics denied him the fame and recognition received by Daguerre. In the 1940’s in Stalin’s Russia photos were often manipulated to remove anyone that had fallen out of favour with Stalin. Just two examples of the many manipulated and staged images throughout history.
Just what can people really expect as truth in photography as well? and are the expectations too high in the first place? For a start there are many things in the equation that affect the final image, such as lens perspective, available light, the dynamic range limitations of the film or digital sensor in relation to the human eye, the angle of view from where the image was taken, so the reality is there is no such thing as an absolute truth in photographs, but a photographers truth, depending on many choices they can make before actually pressing the shutter on the camera. A good and witty example of this is Martin Parrs image of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, from his Small World Series. The image taken at totally the wrong angle shows several people in strange poses, if seen from the correct angle it would appear that they were either holding up or pushing over the tower, an example of the different choices and lenses altering the perspective of images.
Regarding the ethics of truth in photography, this will also depend widely on the particular genre of photography and what reaction the photographer is looking for from the viewer. It is widely considered that there should be no staging or manipulation of images in the photojournalism or documentary fields of photography, though there have been many instances of this happening in the past. There is a lot of controversy surrounding Robert Capa’s image of the falling soldier Death of a loyalist militia man, showing a soldier killed during the Spanish civil war, but the image has been dogged by suggestions it was stage and also that it wasn’t even taken by Capa, but by his girlfriend. Don McCullin talks of manipulating the scene in his photograph Body of a North Vietnamese soldier, Hue, Vietnam 1968. Upset at the treatment of the body by American soldiers, who were making fun of the corpse and stealing his possessions, McCullin arranged the soldiers meagre possessions around the body, making a statement, trying to give a voice to the dead soldier. My own personal feeling or standpoint on this , is that you should just tell the story from what you come across, not stage the scene in any way, or manipulate the image in any way outside of general minor exposure tweaks, as i feel anything outside of that you can be heading into dangerous territory and possibly be accused of trying to manipulate the events to your own agenda and make the viewer see a different event to what actually occurred.
The world of advertising is one where images are often drastically staged and manipulated in order to sell products and it seems perfectly accepted by todays society, a classic example is your typical fast food restaurant menu, full of pictures of delicious, mouth watering food, that often bears little resemblance to what you get served up, but people accept this as the norm and you have the choice if you don’t like it to not buy the product. The fine art Photography field also I think shouldn’t really have limits to what you can do to the image, it should be down to the photographers vision, creativity and the concept of the piece of work.
RobCox 