Bullshit

[paulr]

I've been thinking about bullshit lately, and how it relates to photography. This came about after i read an interview with Harry G. Frankfurt, a Princeton philosophy professor, who wrote a book titled "On Bullshit."

http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7929.html

One of his most intriguing ideas is that bullshiters are greater enemies of truth than liars are, because the liar offers something in contrast to the truth and therefore must have a concern for what the truth is. The bullshitter, on the other hand, operates without any regard for the truth. He or she has a separate agenda, and will try to make a case that may or may not be based on truth. Questions of truthfulness to not even enter into the equation. Bullshiters actually erode the perceived importance of truth, by simply ignoring it.

It's therefore possible that bullshit, which we seem to tolerate and even expect (and sometimes even appreciate, elevating our friends to the status of "bullshit artist" ...) is even more insidious and potentially harmful than lies.

A few forms that bullshit can take are rhetoric (communication intended to persuade someone to action or to a different point of view), sophistry (communication based on specious arguments and often confusing, false logic ... attempts to bamboozle people into agreeing with you), and spin (communication that reframes the context of a fact or situation, with the intent of changing its meaning). And possibly also "truthiness," our 2005 Word of the Year, courtesy of the Colbert Report.

So, what about photography?

Photography's relationship to the truth has been a heated topic since it was discovered. The old discussions have been resurrected lately, since the ubiquity of digital technology now makes it easier than ever to convincingly and fundamentally alter an image.

Those with sophisticated views of the medium often shrug this off, saying that photography has always lied, always will. But I've argued that photography has a relationship to the truth that is fundamental, and that is different from any other visual medium's relationship to the truth.

This relationship does not mean that a photograph can't lie, distort the truth, put a spin on the truth, or obscure the truth. But it does mean that any image that is truly photographic in origin--made by capturing an image from nature with a substance that's sensitive to light--has a certain relationship to objective reality. And therefore, it has a relationship to the truth. It will retain this relationship unless non-photographic means (paintbrush, airbrush, photoshop brush, etc.) are brought to bear with such a heavy hand that its original nature is demolished.

In other posts I've quoted semiologists, who call photography's relationship to its subject matter indexical. An indexical image is one that was in some way connected to or caused by that which it depicts. Other examples are fingerprints, footprints, wave patterns in beach sand.

At first I was going to suggest that photography can lie (your political enemy airbrushed out, a supermodel composited in) but that since it's the nature of the medium to concern itself with the truth, it cannot bullshit. Only media like painting and drawing, which don't have to concern themselves with objective reality can bullshit.

But a few seconds of reflection convinced me that this idea was ... um, bullshit. It seems obvious that there are a million ways a photograph can indulge in rhetoric, sophistry, spin, half-truth, and humbug. And a painting can avoid objective reality by concerning itself with fiction, allegory, or fantasy ... none of which are bullshit. And of course, a photograph can be about these things too.

So I don't have a conclusion. But i wanted to throw out the idea that there is something unique about photographic truth ... and therefore something unique about photographic lies. And perhaps also photographic bullshit.

Thoughts?

[Jonathan Brewer]

Someone who's considering doing a very important exhibition of your work, is coming over to see you so he can examine your work, for the last few days before this historic event, you've been going through your prints, selecting your best/what you think is representative of your art.

He/she comes over and is 'bowled over by your work', in the middle of checking it out, he picks up a print lying around which you absolutely hate, which you forgot to toss out, a print that you think was an absolutely mistake with no redeeming value,..................he looks at this print and shouts, 'this is the best photograph I've seen in my life, I'm going to see that this makes our magazine cover if it's the last thing I do'.

Just after him saying this, what are you going to tell him?

[Jim Ewins]

B. S. is what I see in some high end photo mags. Ten lovely images and 20 pages of B.S. about them & the maker and how it all relates to more B.S. Ain't it enough to just make'm beautiful??

[John Kasaian]

Photographic truth?

Photographs can be entered as evidence in a court of law and evidence is supposed to be useful in determining the factual truth(well maybe not at the SCOTUS).

Photographs are used in aerial surveys and such surveys are supposed to show the earth's image as it true-ly exists.

Photographs are used to record significant events as they are observed by static surviellance cameras which, with no impassioned person at the controls offers about as truthful a perspective of such events as can be expected.

Photographs are used to illustrate things and for assembly instructions which people rely upon for truthful accuracy.

Of course photographs can be manipulated and tweaked, both digitally and conventionally. Some photographers say this is neccesary for a photograph to be "true" while others say such efforts make for photographs to be "false."

I suppose it depends on whether you see a photograph as being true to the subject or if you see it as true to the photographer's emotional or mental state as it applies to the subject at the time it was either taken and/or printed. A "straight" photograph can hardly be taken for anything but true(perhaps even "truly boring") while a manipulated photograph can hardly be taken for anything other than what a photographer sees as "truthful" at the risk of only being an illusion mutually recognized the viewer. Then again it could be an abstraction...an image which while true, isn't immediately recognized as such (if ever) by the viewer.

Of course I'm no art major so take all this with a grain of salt, or better yet a salted rim(on a margarita!)

[Richard Ide]

Best treatise on Bovine Excrement that I have read. No need to include the bovines in your discourse. Tongue in cheek food for thought.
thanks

Richard

[Struan Gray]

Thank you Paul for a thought provoking post.

I have always thought this way about photography, and I think the truth of it can be found in the vanishingly small number of people who use photographic materials to make non-representational, entirely constructed art. Other mediums offer a larger, more sophisticated toolbox, and it's hard to get away from the viewer's' tendency to interpret a photograph's material presence - it's surface gloss and lack of physical texture - as an invitation to read literally.

Many icons of photography such as Cartier Bresson's street shots or Witkin's still lives would be mawkish and adolescent as paintings. They derive their power from the viewer's assumption that they show something that really existed. Also, the myth that a photograph necessarily has to be an act of communication is surprisingly strong and resiliant, which seems to have been reinforced by the current eclipse of poetic photography like that of Minor White that attempted to show continuious states of being.

Photographic bullshit is widespread, from the swagger portraits and paparazzi snaps of the stars, to the embedding and vetting of photojournalists in wartime. I think this reinforces the view that photography as a medium is anchored in perceived truth, even as it undermines it: the accomplished bullshit artist knows how to play on their audience's sympathies and prejudices, and their desire to hear a thrilling true story.

[Antonio Corcuera]

As usual PAs usual Paul, excellent post (and especially amidst all the boring film death debate lately). Thanks.



John has given a list of subjects in which photography is considered truth, or what I would prefer calling documentary testimony, which is related to the perception of a particular truth. I believe we shouldn't forget truth is always relative, not as a concept but as a reality. Even "truthful" photographs have been used for false statements, whether in court or in science magazines (remember the very recent cloning scandal of the korean scientist Hwang).
Artistically -and leaving landscape photography aside- there has been some sort of revival of the documentary power of the medium in the last 20 years, from Gursky, Basilico and Struth to our forum friends Paul Raphaelson and Chris Jordan.
But I think the truth/false dichotomy is in the heart of photography, when we understand that manipulation of reality (or of the image) is part of the way we perceive (both visually and intellectually). Of course, this is nothing new, but I sometimes think we mix the concepts of reality and truth too easily. I'm probably doing so here too.
Struan has mentioned Cartier Bresson and Witkin, two great "truthful" photographers and manipulators of reality. I think of two others, Sugimoto and Fontcuberta (spanish artist who obscenely manipulates reality and makes up wonderful and humourous "stories" documenting them photographically, do check it (http://www.fontcuberta.com)).
As of bullshit, abstract art seems to fit, but in terms of photography? Some of the incomprehensible rayograms of Moholy Nagy?

[Antonio Corcuera]

Sorry for the typos, posted too fast!

[Oren Grad]

Very difficult to have this discussion without indulging in said art.

Many icons of photography such as Cartier Bresson's street shots or Witkin's still lives would be mawkish and adolescent as paintings.

Struan, please explain.

[adrian tyler]

perhaps this bluring of truth and fantasy is most blatent in fashion photography, which attracts some of the best talent in the "business", the fabricated "beauty" being a dictorial manifesto for the majority of young western women...

[Henry Ambrose]

Struan wrote:

"They derive their power from the viewer's assumption that they show something that really existed. "

I think this is the essence of photography - you hit the nail on the head.

Good thread paulr!

[Walt Calahan]

I'm sorry, I don't have any bovine experience, but I do deal with my two horses. Equine excrement is my never ending job.

So perhaps that's why I turn to photography - a vacation from my job?

Since I deal with HS everyday, it gets me thinking perhaps HS seeps into my vocabulary, my soul, my PHOTOGRAPHY!

This will take a lot of time, but this may prove to be a pivotal moment in my photography, perhaps I must re-examine a life-time of photography to see how deeply HS excretes itself throughout my work?

Thanks paulr for changing my life. GRIN!

[paulr]

Walter, maybe you can one-up Professor Frankfurt with you own book, on equine excrement.

[Jonathan Brewer]

How many artists are really after the truth? Mother Theresa and a few monks have sworn off the curse of Narcissus, the pursuit of material wealth, the quest for fame and adulation,............and it's people like these that have found the truth. They've done it without sanctimony, because that's part of the bullshit, pure 100% pasteurized bullshit, this idea somehow that artists have as their agenda the pursuit of the truth, you cannot point out the truth to anybody else, show it to anybody else, ........................................in fact most of the time you really can't be sure if the message the artists work is sending is the same message you're receiving.

Art is in a sense bullshit, though I'd rather call it alchemy/magic, yes magic, which is really trap doors and 'slight of hand' and 'trickery' which is artistry when it's well done, smoke and mirrors being used to create an illusion that may or may not remind you of something else, but there cannot be a discussion using words to illuminate what a picture does or doesn't say...............................................................................................what if for a number of years, you think you've gotten the message/some kind of truth/the essence of what an image had to say, and years later the artist says he didn't mean to say that at all, can't figure out how you can see what you're seeing in his image? What's a great image that was accomplished by accident? What about something great in an image that the creator didn't even notice was in the frame(that somebody else sees and proclaims as great insight as to the mysteries of existence by the artist)?

There are only pictures that you never get tired of looking at, and the rest, there's no way to really know if you're seeing what the artist meant you to see(as if that made any difference), the only truth is what you get out of the art for yourself, which doesn't apply to anybody else particularly the creator of the work.

And there's personal bullshit, nobody answered my first post, I'd be curious as to how many folks talking about all this truth, would choose truth, at the expense of quite a bit of money and fame, by telling someone who's looking at their work, that the shot they're appreciating as a masterpiece is really in the artiss mind a piece of shit?

I'm dead serious about my photography, I don't drink when I shoot, I've been to Carnival several times, I shoot the film I've alotted myself for any particular day when I'm there for Carnival, and then I quit shooting.

One particular day I was quite a ways from the hotel, had the camera w/me with a couple of unexposed frames, but I was done shooting as far as I was concerned, I ended up at an outdoors restaurant until very late that night, and partied w/gusto w/some friends, waking up at the hotel the next morning, I took my film out of that camera, the last two frames were exposed, I had taken two shots that I didn't remember, and one of them is on my website, and it's one of the better ones. I've had people ask me questions about it, tell me that they get this or that value from the picture, when the truth is that the picture was a happy accident that wasn't supposed to happen, that I don't even remember taking.

Whether it's me or somebody else going into a bullshit/'after the fact' and made up story about how you agree w/somebodies comment that you intended this or that, is no big deal with me, that's part of art, regarding the accidental picture I talked about, I just don't say anything and let the folks talk about the image, but respectfully I think part of the bullshit is the idea that somehow artistry is loftier than it really is, most people are struggling to get a good picture, when they get a really good one, sometimes it comes by accident, having nothing to do w/what the artist was trying to do, this is why Elephants can make good money as painters.

[Jonathan Brewer]

The bullshit is the artist conceit, that for him/her, the most important part of the story is the artist telling it, .................instead of what the receiver gets out of it.

[Jonathan Brewer]

A well made masterpiece by the Shakers/furniture as functioning art, is a real object as well as a 'work of art', and is as close to the truth as any photograph, you even touch it and use it, which you cannot do w/the content of a photograph.

[paulr]

"How many artists are really after the truth?"

I think a lot are ... but this question addresses the message, while the original topic was more about the medium--the building blocks used to craft the message. Artists may be after truth with a capital T, in the sense of meaning, or not. But when I ask about photographic truth, I'm refering to something a bit more mundane: the everyday truth of verifiable facts. The message of a straight photograph, like one of Weston's peppers, might concern itself unverifiable issues of spirituality and personal convictions. But the medium conveys this message through a photographic sense of concrete, inarguable fact: a pepper, simply described, almost more real than if it were real.

There's a tension inherent in this expressed by Weston himself when he described it as "a pepper, but more than a pepper," and by Minor White who said that he photographs "what's there, and also what else is there." It's the idea that objective reality is a kind of launching pad for the metaphor, but also a kind of anchor--if we lose sight of it, the metaphor risks flying off into irrelevent obscurity, or burning up like Icarus.

The photographic truth--the grounding in a sense of reality--gives the metaphor strength. As Struan said, "They derive their power from the viewer's assumption that they show something that really existed. " If for whatever reason we lose faith that the thing actually existed--the pepper, the war crime, the woman flying--then the image instantly loses some of its power to move us. It loses its photographic power.

"And there's personal bullshit, nobody answered my first post, I'd be curious as to how many folks talking about all this truth, would choose truth, at the expense of quite a bit of money and fame ..."

it's an interesting question, but not at all connected to photographic truth or photographic bullshit. you could pose the same question to a shoe salesman.

"The bullshit is the artist conceit, that for him/her, the most important part of the story is the artist telling it ..."

you don't have to be an artist to believe your own hype! but i bet believing your own hype helps with the decision to become an artist ...

[Jonathan Brewer]

Yes, but you've got know your part in the bullshit, before you can say anything about anybody else, but still my question hasn't been answered, so I would pose the question to you Paul, suppose that someone is looking over your work, finds a shot you accidently left out that you consider a piece shit that they instantly proclaim as a masterpiece, they want it on a magazine cover, which might lead to considerable fame, would what you tell him.

Other folks likes shoe salesman are into the hype, of course, agreed, but I'm talking about artists, and if fact, that's exactly my point, that they think they have more of an excuse.

At bedtime, my kids ask for me to tell them a story, or to 'put on a show' w/their Teddy Bears, if I can make them laugh, and go to bed w/a smile on their faces, then what I did was a success, and that more important than me being satisfied at what I did, you can pursue art as some kind of pursuit of the truth, but ultimately it's entertainment/inspiration and the enrichment of our lives, not just the ego of the artist, I can appreciate the hard work ethic of a good shoe salesman, even though he doesn't produce what he sells, an artist does,

You can't talk about the truth, or bullshit, if you can't apply it to yourself as well as to others, and there may be some shoe salesman on this forum who also happen to be photographers, so I can still ask that question of you or of them, would you throw away the chance of a lifetime/a golden opportunity, to tell the truth, if you can't/won't answer that, then what are we talking about?

[Steve J Murray]

"Truth" is how a photograph or other work of art makes you feel in your gut. Bullshit (or Elephant Shit, as Perls would say) is what you explain to yourself or others about what the photograph or art means or says (or is supposed to mean or say). That's how I see it. Great post paul.

[darr]

"It's the idea that objective reality is a kind of launching pad for the metaphor"

Thought for the day ...

If observing the world tends to change it, how come we all see the same butterfly?

[tim atherton]

The photographic truth--the grounding in a sense of reality--gives the metaphor strength. As Struan said, "They derive their power from the viewer's assumption that they show something that really existed. " If for whatever reason we lose faith that the thing actually existed--the pepper, the war crime, the woman flying--then the image instantly loses some of its power to move us. It loses its photographic power.

I'm not 100% sure about this. I think it can do; but I also feel the dissonance you describe also holds the potential for doing something differently. I don't think the loss of that power - or metaphorical strength - is automatic. I'm not quite sure the two things are inexorably tied together.

I sense you feel quite strongly about this because you have said the same thing in different ways before. But I'm not completely convinced that "make the break" automatically = "loss of the photograph's power". Though in most cases it probably does.

My instinct is that it could be possible to take this break, this fracture, this dissonance and also do something powerful with it. I'm not yet quite sure what that would be though, and I think it has rarely been done successfully before.

[paulr]

"Paul, suppose that someone is looking over your work, finds a shot you accidently left out that you consider a piece shit that they instantly proclaim as a masterpiece, they want it on a magazine cover, which might lead to considerable fame, would what you tell him."

Real answer: whatever i say now, no matter how much I'd like to believe I'd be 100% commited to my integrity, I wouldn't know until I was in that situation. I'd have to know all the facts, what I stand to gain, and to lose, how I really feel about that work, how late the rent check already is, etc. etc...

But suppose I give it to them. Is that bullshit? Am I demonstrating any disregard for any truth? There are a few possible ways it could happen: 1) I am convinced the work is bad, but I am selling out my ideals. 2) I believe the work is bad, but see a possibility that others see something that I don't, or value something about the work that I don't, and I give them the benefit of the doubt. 3) I am convinced the work is bad, but consider this a break that will help get my better work in front of people.

In any of these cases, I'm not misrepresenting or sidestepping any truth. I'm not actively selling the work, just agreeing to let someone publish it. You could challenge my integrity, but I don't see what you could call out as bullshit.

[paulr]

"My instinct is that it could be possible to take this break, this fracture, this dissonance and also do something powerful with it. I'm not yet quite sure what that would be though, and I think it has rarely been done successfully before."

If I understand what you're saying, then I think it has been done, in surrealism, constructivism, dada, etc... But it represents the sacrificing of one kind of power in the quest for another. The result is often something that looks real and impossible at the same time, in the way that inspires fantasy or disorientation.

This is different from something that simply looks real, but upon closer examination (or someone letting us in on something) we realize it's been faked. I suspect for a photograph to make up for the power it loses in this situation, it would have to be able to make a pretty fresh and convincing point through this dissonance ... "things are not always what they seem!" ... but of course, fresher than that.

The risk that I see is the gradual erosion of a power that's always belonged to photography. If we become so accustomed to every straight looking image actually being a composite of what's in some art director's or marketing department's imagination, we'll get jaded. Our initial reaction to images will no longer be wonder; it will be skepticism. If photographs " ...derive their power from the viewer's assumption that they show something that really existed," what happens to that power when the assumption goes away?

I'm not railing against manipulated images here. I have no issues with pictorialism, dada, staged photography, collage, montage, etc. etc... These are all traditions that are what they are. I don't see them as being untruthful anymore than a painting is untruthful. I get concerned, though, when images purporting to be straight, whether overtly or through context or presentation, turn out not to be. This becomes the possible realm of photographic lie, or more insidiously, of photographic bullshit. Which, like other bullshit, erodes the power of truth primarily by ignoring it.

[tim atherton]

If I understand what you're saying, then I think it has been done, in surrealism, constructivism, dada, etc... But it represents the sacrificing of one kind of power in the quest for another. The result is often something that looks real and impossible at the same time, in the way that inspires fantasy or disorientation.

In a way, though my own inclination would be more to compare it to what has been done in literature with the likes of Garcia Marquez or Murakami

The risk that I see is the gradual erosion of a power that's always belonged to photography. If we become so accustomed to every straight looking image actually being a composite of what's in some art director's or marketing department's imagination, we'll get jaded. Our initial reaction to images will no longer be wonder; it will be skepticism. If photographs " ...derive their power from the viewer's assumption that they show something that really existed," what happens to that power when the assumption goes away?

You mention the art director's and marketing department's imagination - as you well know, in certain areas of photography - and especially in magazines and advertising this has been going on for generations now. Yet the interestign thing is people do suspend heir (mis) belief and on the whole don't actually seem to have become jaded.

But it represents the sacrificing of one kind of power in the quest for another. The result is often something that looks real and impossible at the same time, in the way that inspires fantasy or disorientation.

This is different from something that simply looks real, but upon closer examination (or someone letting us in on something) we realize it's been faked

which pretty much describes cinema (or movies) - and while I often think there are far more differences than similarities between still photography and cinema, this is also might be worth think about in this context. Especially as the birth of cinema/moving pictures was in part rooted in still photography's striving to show the reality or truth of something that couldn't be perceived by the eye... The indexical connection was in effect invisible to the eye - and some refused to believe it - especially artists.

So in the ebdI'm still not quite persuaded - and when you say

I suspect for a photograph to make up for the power it loses in this situation, it would have to be able to make a pretty fresh and convincing point through this dissonance ... "things are not always what they seem!" ... but of course, fresher than that.

my instinct again is to respond YES! But I don't think anyone has found it yet. Remember, someone had to invent the novel and declare a new way of telling stories through writing...

[Jonathan Brewer]

'Real answer: whatever i say now, no matter how much I'd like to believe I'd be 100% commited to my integrity, I wouldn't know until I was in that situation. I'd have to know all the facts, what I stand to gain, and to lose, how I really feel about that work, how late the rent check already is, etc. etc...

But suppose I give it to them. Is that bullshit? Am I demonstrating any disregard for any truth? There are a few possible ways it could happen: 1) I am convinced the work is bad, but I am selling out my ideals. 2) I believe the work is bad, but see a possibility that others see something that I don't, or value something about the work that I don't, and I give them the benefit of the doubt. 3) I am convinced the work is bad, but consider this a break that will help get my better work in front of people.

In any of these cases, I'm not misrepresenting or sidestepping any truth. I'm not actively selling the work, just agreeing to let someone publish it. You could challenge my integrity, but I don't see what you could call out as bullshit.'....................................................................................................................particularly this part of what you said..................................'Is that bullshit?.'............................................................my answer is yes, but what difference does it make.

In this case you obviously have something these folks want, this alone validates you/your work, and ironically, your worst work provides you a golden opportunity, IF you take it, I don't have a problem w/this, but no matter how you slice it, you aren't being honest w/somebody if they voice to you their feelings about your work, and you know better, and don't say anything, when you have a chance to, just like you would do if somebody got your work wrong, and you had a chance to correct them, you, me, and every artist that ever lived, would speak up in that regard.

My point is that artists can agree on this as bullshit, but it doesn't really mean anything, particularly to the folks who aren't artists, who appreciate 'art', there's a sender and a receiver, the receiver loves what he/she's getting, no harm done, and my ultimate point is that there's a lot of bullshit out there, I don't believe anybody is above it, and there's nothing to be ashamed of for recognizing this as human nature.

Having said this, I don't admire somebody who's not trying to improve/learn, but is simply out to fool people out of their money, this is the charlatan, if folks that are serious in what they do like most folks on and off these forums, are trying their best, trying to show their work, working hard at their craft, and most difficult of all, trying to eat/pay the rent from the fruits of their art, you'd be crazy not to take a 'golden opportunity' if it comes along, even at the expense of a little 'purity' by not telling the truth about a print to someone whose responsible for his own judgement.

Trying to tell the truth, seeing the truth in the work of others, or considering some aspect of art as some kind of persoal affront to your sense of integrity, is a pointless exercise in art, the only thing that means anything is what you feel personally in your 'gut' when you look at a work of art, as Steven J. Murray points out.

[Henry Ambrose]

paulr:

"This becomes the possible realm of photographic lie, or more insidiously, of photographic bullshit. Which, like other bullshit, erodes the power of truth primarily by ignoring it."

An advertising photo, skillfully done, forces viewers to buy into whatever it is they are selling. They believe the story being presented to them. There is no denying the tremendous power of a photograph to make viewers believe something exists. Movies (and TV) do this too but not to the extent that a still photograph does. Most folks don't have any problem distinguishing talking cats selling kitty litter from real cats.

In our hearts, if not in our minds, most of us want to and will believe a photograph when we see it. At this level of unsophistication what is happening in the photo looks real, was real, will be real, could be real. Its wonderful! The BS part starts as soon as we attach something else. "OK we've sold you on the picture now buy our stuff so you can look like that too." or "Lets add a big car chase that'll pack the house - just look at what (insert last years famous movie) did last year."

I think people really are jaded, so jaded in fact that they don't even understand that they are. Being jaded has the effect of those folks looking for more and more BS photos. Its what makes art directors and photographers keep looking for the next new look, songwriters trying to write the next big thing and so on. That this happens proves to me that the viewers and receivers of photographs (and other media) are quite jaded. We have seen everything out there and if we are not fed something new we won't buy the BS being fed to us. So we need new BS all the time.

Think about a person who lived 150 years ago and the drastic difference in the number of photographs he saw in his whole life and the number that even a 5 year old living today has seen. It is a wonder that our heads don't explode from sensory overload!

[Christopher Nisperos]

Harry G. Frankfurt's book , "On Bullshit " . . . that wouldn't happen to be a sarcastic take-off on Sontag's book, "On Photography"? (and rightly so, IMHO).

For me, much of the bullshit in photography comes from post-justification and over-intellectualisation. "Oh, I just love the way you included that airplane in the background . . . yes, that little spot in the sky . . . stroke of genius, really! What a great example of the industrial priority of today's society as opposed to the greater social need for a cleaner environment and a reduction noise in urban areas . . . and all cleverly disguised as a snapshot at the beach. Brilliant. "

[tim atherton]

I trully and honestly have never quite understood wh7 so many on this List seem to feel threatened, affrotned and offended by Sontag's book and what she says about photography. You'd think she was out to emascualte the lot of us. Mention Sontag on here and all I can say is - thank god for blood pressure medication

[paulr]

"This is different from something that simply looks real, but upon closer examination (or someone letting us in on something) we realize it's been faked

"which pretty much describes cinema (or movies) ... "

Except that cinema is fiction presented as fiction, not fiction presented as evidence. Unless you're talking about documentary film, or newsreels ... which, like anything else that purports to be the truth, is ripe ground for bullshit

Garcia Marquez and Murakami are also fiction presented as fiction... the tensions they both create between naturalism and fantasy come within the context of novels, which present a whole different set of rules and expectations than straight photography.

There's an interesting parallel in literature right now. "A Million Little Pieces," by James Frey, has been on NY Time non-fiction bestseller list for a couple of weeks now, rocketed to fame with help from the Oprah juggernaut. It's supposedly the memoirs, all true, of an over-the-top ex junkie and crook. But some investigative reporters have discovered that Frey made much of it up--particularly the good parts. This has caused so much furor that the publisher is offering refunds.

The investigators uncovered something that's particularly significant to this discussion: Frey tried first, unsuccesfully, to publish the book as fiction. Critics have concurred that the book is really weak when read as a novel. Most of its power comes from the belief that the events depicted are true. Take that belief away, and you have thousands of former fans screaming for their money back.

[Alan Davenport]

Surely, Prof. Frankfurt must realize that his treatise contains mostly bullshit?

In fact, bullshit is an art form of its own. It not only permeates our society, but is in fact the essence of the lives of many individuals at, or near, the top of the food chain (read: "all politicians" or "many lawyers" or "practically all philosophers.")

Frankfurt says, "Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it." Obviously, most bullshitters believe the opposite. What's more, if history is any indicator, the bullshitters are right.

When speaking of photography, I thinks it's important to differentiate between photographic bullshit (such as staged photographs that are presented as actual events in the news) and photographs that are simply pieces of shit. I suspect that the former are relatively rare, while there is no question that the latter are easy to find. I know I've produced some of the latter, and I suspect everyone else has.

I'm not sure photography needs to have any connection to the truth. Many photographs make no pretense of truthfulness, yet are not bullshit. A photograph that claims to be about truth, but is not, may be bullshit. A photograph that is not about truth, but makes no claim of truthfulness, cannot be bullshit, although it may be a piece of shit.

I just read through what I typed above, and I think it's all bullshit. But I spent too much time typing it to just throw it away.

[paulr]

"Surely, Prof. Frankfurt must realize that his treatise contains mostly bullshit?"

have you read it? if not, such a declaration would have to be considered an act of bullshit.

[tim atherton]

Paul,

part of what I feel is that I'm not completely convinced of two assumptions you make - that people really do believe completely that photographs always convey such an indexical truth and also that people become (or have become) jaded by false or "bs" photographs.

I think the are plenty of people - especially Fred Blogs who has never visited an art gallery in his life types - who are more sophisticated about this than we would perhaps like to think. At it's most oversimplified and unsubtle they know that the Macdonalds Big Mac in the ads looks nothing like the sad pile of greasy crap they actually get on their plate when they visit the shrine of the manic clown. They also know that's the way it works. They don't feel the photograph actually lied to them. But I also think most people are also capable of understanding and accepting much more subtle variations of that scenario.

I also think that rather than being jaded people can actually be quite optimistic about the view that photographs give them - even as they are bombarded with hundreds of images every day. I guess in part I think that in many senses people can actually be quite sophisticated about how they read photographs.

Part of this is that whenever some "big" manipulation thing happens - National Geo moving the pyramids. darkening OJ's face on Time/Newsweek, - whatever the last couple of major ones have been - it's the photographers who seem to get all excited about it "journalistic ethics, truth in photography... and so on and so on". The Fred and Frederica Blogs that I know just don't get worried about it - it's not really an issue to them. Most seem to feel neither betrayed nor jaded. They don't feel the rug has suddenly been pulled out from under their feet (that's the photographer reasons), but nor are they jaded. I think they are actually better at understanding photogoraphs than that.

By the way, on the indexical relationship thing - I can't remeber the details, but there is a modern philisphical argument that the realtionship is actually more than indexical - rather like the link provided by an othodox icon

[Henry Ambrose]

Tim wrote:
"The Fred and Frederica Blogs that I know just don't get worried about it - it's not really an issue to them. Most seem to feel neither betrayed nor jaded. They don't feel the rug has suddenly been pulled out from under their feet (that's the photographer reasons), but nor are they jaded. I think they are actually better at understanding photogoraphs than that."

Tim, you are partly right here. But I think what happens is a little more each time the knife of cyncism plunges in a bit deeper. Not many notice but more and more they turn away from the lies. Or buy them and live the lies they've been fed. I mean after a life of getting BSed what are you gonna do when it happens one more time? There won't be any big reaction to life-as-usual.

The first turn (from your example) might be that they expect the food to be less than portrayed. Before long they suspect everything. What I'm concerned about is the dilution of wonder that exists when the power of a photograph (or more so photography) is corrupted. When wonder is replaced by doubt and finally disbelief. Thats what BS gets us.

I'd rather make something wonderful.

[John Kasaian]

Good Post! After walking around thinking about this all day. I'm back for round 2:

Plato and Aquinas and much of classical western thought would instruct us that we should be searching for the Truth---that is the stuff of Life, like water and air. Modern thinkers say no, Truth is relative, it is not something that the whole of humankind shares, its more like Jicama in a salad bar---if Jicama is for you, thats fine but some of us would prefer beets instead...maybe fresh beets, maybe pickled...and then there are those who go for the bean sprouts.

I'm trying to see how this applies to photography. I can kind of see how it applies to prints...a print is either a truthful representation of something or it isn't, but that dosen't go far enough. A truthful representation of a piece of land in an aerial photo is indeed truthful, but so is a truthful representation of an image formed in an artists imagination. If it dosen't resemble any physical thing it may well resemble, quite truthfully, some imaginary thing.

OK, then maybe Truth in Photography isn't neccesarily about the end product, but the physical act of taking the photo. A Photographer is True in his or her attempt to capture a child's laugh, a cloud's collision with a mountainside, a nesting egret, or movie starlet sunbathing. It is the "target" of the moment that is what is True, for if it wasn't, there wouldn't have been an exposure made of it. Film may be exposed accidentally, but in this scenario accidental exposures could be "True" as well....."Truly accidental!" Even so, setting an f/stop, focusing, pulling the dark slide(on a loaded film holder of course!) and pressing the cable release with the intent to commit photography is what is truly True. What happens after that is subject to every form of corruption, either in the lab or in the viewer's mind or elsewhere. Chaos, I guess.

Hows that for a line of "BS?"

[Marko]

Now this is a topic that really lends itself well to various interpretations, not to mention perception or intent...

If a photogrpah was taken with the intent to document, then any manipulation other than enhancing legibility would be either a lie or bulshit, depending on the intent of the manipulator. This category would clearly include forensics, patology, science, journalism and similar fields.

But if, on the other hand, the photograph was taken with the intent of creating art, then it makes no sense to categorize it as either thruth, lie or bulshit, because the art is about representing a vision and not fact, so it could be - and usually is - a mix of all three.

The end result of photography as art is therefore the same as that of painting, only accomplished using different technique. The end result of photography as a document is its exact oposite. I don't think that being jaded means reduced trust in photography - I think it means diminished trust in its practitioners, namely the media.

Regards,

[Marko]

Then again, someone once said the following:

It's not love that makes the world go 'round, and it's not money - it's bulshit.

How's that about being jaded?

[paulr]

"part of what I feel is that I'm not completely convinced of two assumptions you make - that people really do believe completely that photographs always convey such an indexical truth and also that people become (or have become) jaded by false or "bs" photographs."

I think I'm talking about something a little more subtle than whether or not the guy on the street believes everything he sees, or becomes consciously jaded. I'm getting at more of a general sensibility ... if someone sees a simple picture, like a mountain lake with clouds above it, is their gut reaction to assume that such a place exists? That the weather and the light were like on a certain moment of a certain day? Once upon a time, there wouldn't have been a question in most people's minds about this. And I realize that such pictures have been composited and faked since the middel of the nineteenth century ... that's not the point. The point is that for most people, photography had as one of its sources of power, the belief of the viewer that they were witnessing something real.

This may still be the case today. But I sense that it's eroding.

I'm not making any kind of ethical argument about manipulated images. But I suspect that the more people witness a certain kind of trust (which is probably an unconscious trust) violated ... by images that appear to be of something real but that aren't ... this distrust will become the new status quo. The picture of the mountain lake will cary no more force of reality than a frame in a comic book. It's one thing if we're talking about scandals in newspapers that are quite separate from us. It's another when everyone and their grandmother has image editing software included with AOL and iLife, and can see first hand how maleable reality really has become.

I think another way to look at this is that we are gaining something--unprecedented power over the medium. And as a result we are losing something--a way of being moved by the medium, due to a power it had over us.

This isn't really where I planned to go with this ... I think there many other issues of truth, lies, and b.s. that are related to photography. This is an interesting one, though, because it comes up a lot these days, and because so many of the polarized responses I've seen seem unconvincing.

[John Kasaian]

A several years back in Photographer's Market I saw a beautiful landscape accredited to a husband and wife team whose names I've forgotten. It was a photo of a huge full moon sailing in a starry night sky with snow laden evergreens overlooking a mountainside covered with snow glowing in the moonlight. It was one of the best composits I've ever seen with photos taken in various locations and with different formats I think as well. I really wanted to believe it was an actual landscape, but reading the caption I learned that it was a composite. Why was it made? To showcase the talents of the Photographers.

I don't look at truly dramatic landscapes in the same same way anymore. It sounds odd, but I can't trust my eyes. I still appreciate landscapes and if anything the experience inspired me to shoot "straight" thinking a viewer would appreciate the honesty. I think I experienced a loss that day though. A loss of trust in photographic interpretations of the landscape

Such losses are common across the boards these days, in every field from art, education, law, medicine, etc... as a result of a common acceptance of modernism by society and an unfounded faith in technology which now allows all kinds of things to be done with the only reason being that maybe a reason will present its self later on.

The result is predictable to a fault and goes something like this(I don't remember where I heard it---but it came from somewhere and from someone smarter than I) synthesized into the form of two questions, first being:

1) What would it hurt?

followed by

2) How was I to know?

Maybe thats whats happened to truth in photography?

How was I to know?

[Struan Gray]

I said: Many icons of photography such as Cartier Bresson's street shots or Witkin's still lives would be mawkish and adolescent as paintings.

Oren: Struan, please explain.


I don't think what I said is true of all HCB or Witkin photographs, but when I tried imagining their work presented in other mediums I quickly came to the same conclusions as Paul about the unique position photography has within visual media: people assume it to be non-fiction unless explicity told otherwise. It's a bit like the position that journalism has within writing: blocks of simply-formatted text in a physical newspaper are assumed to be non-fiction too, a fact exploited by the advertorial and 'advertising feature'.

Take a typical HCB icon, the man jumping over a puddle. As a painting the suspended motion would look awkward and the surrealism and multiple references would be regarded as only partially developed. As a photograph, as a street photograph snapped by a known master in the art of seeing, it has much more power. Whimsey and quirkyness are valued photographic qualities because they are associated with real people and real lives. As pure acts of invention they don't seem quite interesting enough, or collapse into bathos. It's the link with reality that keeps us interested.

Something similar goes on with Witkin's grotesques. He photographs the sorts of dark recesses of the imagination that appeal greatly to teenage boys before they learn about consequences and responsibility. His photos are for grown ups, but remind us of how strong our fascination with the macabre is when we'd rather forget or at least pretend to have put such things aside. I don't want to ignite another Witkin war here, but I think that both his supporters and detractors agree that his images would not have enjoyed the same success had they been done with mannikins, or computer generated. Every third rate death metal band has fake severed heads on thier liner notes, Witkin's are real.

I agree with Tim that this argument can be taken too far. The assumption of truth can quite easily and quickly be suspended, even by people who don't read Satre at breakfast. What is surprising is how strong and resiliant that assumption is. Perhaps one reason is that most people have no direct reason to care if a particular photograph is faked or not: there are no consequences other than a slight change in the coffee room gossip. Another is the well-proven fact that people are fond of telling researchers that they're not fooled or moved by advertising and editorial slant, but flock to buy the product or jump on the bandwagon nevertheless.

One thing that really surprises me is that nobody has mentioned photographers like Duane Michaels, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall, all of whom for various reasons deliberately question the idea of photographic truth. And then there are major league conventional artists like Gerhard Richter or Robert Rauchenberg and other pop artists who have been directly addressing the truth or otherwise of photographs for years. I konw the term 'bullshit' often gets thrown at them for baser reasons, but in strict terms of their releationship with reality even their supporters can probably see that at times the cap does fit - in fact, they deliberately put it on.

[paulr]

"Take a typical HCB icon, the man jumping over a puddle."

Another observation about this picture ... it's hard for us today to fully appreciate the impact that pictures like this had in their time. Much of what was unique was the simple fact of catching a candid moment, of stopping time. This was new in photography. HCB's generation came of age during this technical transition of the medium. He was born a few years after the Brownie, a few years before the Leica. He was raised at a time when stopping time was a brand new ability ... the aparent super power of photography.

Stopping time is old news to us now. And it's never been particular challenging in other art media! I think of the amazing moments depicted in Delacroix's paintings ... horses rearing, bleeding men collapsing, sun bursting through clouds, plump breasts popping out of gowns ... they put even Winogrand's wildest moments to shame.

These captured moments in phtography were special because they actually happened, and for the first time ever in the history of representation, the medium was evidence that the artist was there to bear witness.

[Struan Gray]

Paul, I respectfully suggest that you are at least forty years too late. Muybridge's horse was 1878. "Edgerton's" crown of droplets formed by a splashing drop of milk was first photographed in 1894. There are a whole bunch of other examples on these pages:

http://chnm.gmu.edu/aq/photos/texts/9ts47a.htm

http://chnm.gmu.edu/aq/photos/texts/9ts191a.htm

OK. I saw the 'candid', but the golden age of the "detective camera" was a good bit earlier than HCB behind the Gare.

[paulr]

These are a little different, don't you think? it might come down to one of the implications of "candid." the hand camera pictures of HCB's era offer a personal view of the world. The earlier stop-action experiments offer a much more staged, scientific one.

Also, the early pictures, like Edgerton's, typically showed us a hidden world of phenomena that we previously couldn't see. The hand camera had a different strength ... showing us things that we've always been able to see, but could never photograph.

[paulr]

"One thing that really surprises me is that nobody has mentioned photographers like Duane Michaels, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall, all of whom for various reasons deliberately question the idea of photographic truth"

Don't they all create fiction images that are presented as such?

(I don't know much of Wall's work, but have seen plenty of sherman's)

[tim atherton]

What of Gursky's?

Many of his photographs are presented as "reality" - at least ostensibly - that is, he doesn't say what they are one way or the other in their presentation.

Yet many (though not all) are "fictions"

[paulr]

"What of Gursky's?"

I'm still trying to figure out what I think about Gursky. I'm intrigued by his work. I wonder if the question, "is it real, and if not, what is it, and why?" is central to what he's up to.

what do you think?

[Struan Gray]

I should be in bed but I've time to spin the plates one more time...

'Candid' photography goes back further than many think, at least as far as the faster dryplates introduced at the turn of the last century. The links I gave are to a site concerned with photography as legal evidence, and they and other pages there have a lot of information about truly candid photography of criminals in action.

I hope I am not just being bloody minded, but I do think the wow factor of stopped motion would have subsided by 1932 when HCB was snapping behind the Gare St. Lazare. My original point was that it was a different sort of stopped motion from that usually shown in painting and other wholly created visual arts. The other arts usually tried to make the frozen figure conform to ideas of what static poses (harmonious or otherwise) should look like. Lartigue's sister jumping down the steps looks bizarre even today.

Michaels, Sherman and Wall are all fully up-front that their images are fictions, but they are convincing fictions that do not fundamentally challenge our ideas about how the world physically looks and works. As such, it is very easy to forget that they are pure inventions and start to interpret them as slices of captured reality - and I at least think that is part of their point. Of course, I'm talking about a lot of photographs in one small paragraph, so not all their work will fit the description, especially Sherman's.

One last point: Janet Malcolm likes to point to photography's unavoidable and unintentional inclusiveness. From the loathing on he face of Julia Margaret Cameron's baby Jesus to all the clutter round the edges of so many street and interior documentary photographs, this inclusiveness serves to enhance the appearance of truth. Spies and charletans know the trick too unfortunately: the accumulation of supposedly impossible to fake detail being an old trick in the toolbox of deception.

[paulr]

"I only wanted Uncle Vern standing by his new car (a Hudson) on a clear day. I got him and the car. I also got a bit of Aunt Mary's laundry, and Beau Jack, the dog, peeing on a fence, and a row of potted tuberous begonias on the porch and 78 trees and a million pebbles in the driveway and more. It's a generous medium, photography." --Lee Friedlander

[domenico Foschi]

Photographic truth, ... there is no such thing.
First of all even without a camera people perceive life in a sensory level in a different way from each other.
Then if we put a camera in fron of our eyes the distance from what we call reality gets deepened.
First of all it becomes 2 dimensional.
I have read somewhere that animals, among which cats, see different colors from ours.
In this sense I think is incorrct to assume that what we perceive as reality might really be.
We experience reality from what we are, not as it is.

[Peter Hruby]

I think we need to make a big picture where photography went over a time since beginning. What do you see if you look at the pictures from 19 century? Early years of 20 century, Mid 50's, 70's, 90's, 2000, now? It is expanding, Ansel Adams and Weston and Others ever earlier prhtographer tried to stop moment of the time. You do not see surrealism, or fantasy or manipulation, you see the art of space to be reproduced as close to reality as possible. Truth? Question. I am not Adams, Weston, Even Paul (great thread by the way), I am myself, and my point of what I do is the truth. If you make pictures to look for extreme, the best, the most unique? Truth or Lies? You gonna call it Art. This is simmilar to: "Tell me what is Empty space? or Nothing? or Capitalism? or Truth or Bullshit...

That's all a wanted to say.
Peter.