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).
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...