1.6 The Real and the Digital

Read the section entitled ‘The Real and the Digital’ in Wells, L. (ed.) (2015)
Photography : a critical introduction. (Fifth edition.) London, [England] ; New York,
New York: Routledge. pp.92–95. At:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucreative-ebooks/detail.action?docID=196
8918
Does digital technology change how we see photography as truth?
Consider both sides of the argument and make some notes in your learning log.

What was your idea of documentary photography before you worked on
Part One? How would you now sum it up?

What are the differences between documentary, reportage,
photojournalism and art photography?

Reflection:

The idea that photographs provide irrefutable evidence of reality has long since disappeared from our social consciousness, thanks in the main to the ubiquity of mobile phone camera apps and photo editing software. Such is the expectation that celebrity portraits or fashion model images have been “photoshopped”, that such images are seldom if ever accepted at face value.

Social media has helped to expose “photography fakes” where social media bloggers have been caught out using “faked” backgrounds to their travel blogs. There appears to be a momentum to these exposé stories, possibly because people feel cheated or deceived by such posts. This would suggest an underlying belief in the truth of the photographic image (when not obviously manipulated) which is betrayed by the false claims of the photo editors.

We live today in the age of “fake news” society is becoming ever more doubting of news stories and associated imagery. This move to the denial or questioning of all photographic images is not necessarily positive. Rather like the fable “the boy that cried wolf” we now face the situation where genuine photojournalism is questioned or doubts cast by unscrupulous agents that devalue such images. An extreme of such behaviour being that images of the holocaust are denied or denounced as fabricated by holocaust deniers.

Not withstanding the herd cynicism highlighted above, before working on part one of this course I saw the terms photojournalism, documentary and reportage as having roughly the same meaning. I would have grouped all under the genre of “straight photography” meaning that the images would have recorded events accurately, truthfully and stand as a genuine record of moments in time. Oh foolish me!

Part one has introduced to me the subtle differences between between such terms. I say “subtle” because these terms are often used interchangeably, even by the photographers themselves. Additionally the “photographer’s voice” whereby a photographers image will to some extent expose the motivations or priorities of the photographer whether conscious or not will affect the “truth” of any image.

Of the three terms above Photojournalism has the closest links to accuracy and authenticity. The inclusion of the “journalism” is the clue here. Described in the Cambridge dictionary as “the work of collecting writing and publishing or broadcasting news stories and articles” photojournalists provide images for the news media. These images are often captured close to action or incidents, providing evidence or information to support news stories.

Documentary photography is a term often used to cover some or all of the other genres above, however significant differences between documentary and photojournalism photography will include; Documentary photography is often a step removed from the immediacy of “front line” journalism. Documentary photography often follows a predetermined agenda and is selective in the images captured to support that agenda. It may be social reform or raising the profile of important subjects. If photojournalists photograph the immediate impact of a natural disaster in another country whilst newsworthy, documentary photographers would be the people continuing to record the struggles of the people affected long after the journalists have left.

Photojournalism and documentary photographers are concerned with objective photography, whereas Reportage offers the photographer the opportunity for subjectivity in the presentation of their message. One famous exponent of reportage photography is Henri Cartier-Bresson who’s “decisive moment” work demonstrates how an image captured at the right moment may conote more than it denotes. Reportage photography provides the means for visual story telling and today this style is overy popular when used to capture the both the feeling and the actuality of weddings or other social events.

Bibliography

Wells L (ed.) (2009) Photography: a critical introduction, Routledge, Oxford; New York. pp.67-99

Clarke G (1997) The photograph, Oxford Press, New York. pp.207-208.

Bate D (2009) Photography the key concepts, Berg, Oxford. pp.53-65.

1.5 The Manipulated Image.

https://holliwomble2.home.blog/

Brief:

Instead of using double exposures or printing from double negatives we now have the technology available to us to make these changes in post-production, allowing for quite astonishing results.

Use digital software such as Photoshop to create a composite image that visually appears to be a documentary photograph but which could never actually be.

To make a composite image you need to consider your idea and make the required amount of images to join together.

Upload the images and decide which image you’ll use as your main image and background. Use the magic wand to select sections of an image from the others you wish to move into your background image. Copy via layer and drag into the background. Do this repeatedly until you have all the pieces of your puzzle in place. In order to make it more convincing, use the erase tool on each layer to keep the edges soft and to create a better illusion. Be aware of perspective and light and shadows for the most effective results.

Approach:

This exercise came about at a time when I have been looking carefully at alternatives to Adobe CC. I used Affinity Photo on an Apple iMac some time ago before moving to Adobe and I have a fondness for it because it was the first of such applications that I had ever used. So when I purchased an iPad and pencil last week I wanted to use it, together with Affinity Photo. to work on this exercise.

I felt that this exercise came at an extremely early stage in the degree course as to successfully fool the eye with a composite image is quite a skill and one that is perhaps honed over many years. The online tutorial videos make the manipulations look easy but clearly, the presenters are experts in their art. I, unsurprisingly, am not! Be prepared to be underwhelmed.

For me, the obvious choice of subject matter was the current political protagonists in the latest elusions and delusions being presented by those that feel they know what is good for us. The latest theatrical event being the election of a new Prime Minister which brought me to my choice of candidate.

I selected just one figure for my composite image but in creating it I had to apply rather a lot of manipulation. I chose a background as far from the nature of this individual as I could find, that of a Buhdist Monk. I intended for the image to have a level of contextual humour that could be supported by any number of backstories.

My opinion of this work is that I do not show any kind of flare for image manipulation . But I enjoyed trying, enjoyed attempting humour and caricature and if I have more time later in the course I might try and improve on this one.

Images:

1.4 Sarah Pickering – Public Order

https://holliwomble2.home.blog/

Exercise

Look at some more images from this series on the artist’s website.

How do Pickering’s images make you feel?
Is Public Order an effective use of documentary or is it misleading?

Findings

Images from Sarah Pickering’s work “Public Order”

Pickering’s images evoke complex emotions. At first glance they remind me of the lesser successful of 1960s and 1970s urban constructions. The streets are eerie, possibly because they are unpopulated or perhaps because we subconsciously notice the small indicators that all is not as it appears. The areas of scorched buildings and scorched ground suggest the aftermath of rioting or civil disorder. This generates a feeling of foreboding.

The images where the detail of the fabrication can be seen, for example the top lefthand picture above where the viewer can see the scrubland through the open front door, are strangely less eerie. Once we see the nature of the constructed reality our subconscious concerns evaporate.

Pickering’s Westworld-esque compositions are enjoyable viewing because they present as both documentary, in their straight representation of the police training ground and artistic, through their toying with our emotional response. External context is, I think, intrinsic to how these images are viewed. If viewed without this knowledge some of the images may be considered misleading. However, the longer I have viewed them the more I have been amused and delighted by the subtlety of Pickering’s clever compositions.

1.3 Reportage

Brief:

Find a street that particularly interests you – it may be local or further afield. Shoot 30 colour images and 30 black and white images in a street photography style.

In your learning log, comment on the differences between the two formats. What difference does colour make? Which set do you prefer and why?

Approach:

I chose Sandown’s Esplanade and High Street as locations for this exercise. It is not an area that I frequent but I felt that it may be busier than my home town of Ventnor. The towns on the Isle of Wight are often rather quiet. As it transpired it was a good choice with a wide variety of subjects.

Equipment was a Pentax APS-C DSLR with a 50mm f1.7 vintage lens. This required manual focus and a calculated exposure. The Pentax DSLR keeps the lens aperture wide open to aid focussing, until taking the shot. I therefore had to calculate the exposure in full stops based upon the difference between the aperture set on the lens aperture ring and the the lens aperture when wide open (f1.7) then adjusted the exposure compensation accordingly (AV mode, Manual ISO) This is a slower process than with a modern lens and is complicated by the large dynamic range we get on the coast. I shot in RAW which gave me greater flexibility to recover details and post processed in Adobe Lightroom.

When composing, I looked specifically for situations where colour would add interest and also situations where texture and context might be more. important. This may have been less spontanious than composing without thinking and deciding on the format later, but I feel that it made for a better comparison between the differences.

Unfortunately my mobile parking app wouldn’t work on Sandown Esplanade and the parking meter only gave me one hour. So this exercise was also a test of what I could achieve in a fixed timeframe. (Hence the very similar images towards the end)

Images:

Reflection

I have tried to arrange the images to give a direct comparison between similar scenes so that it is possible to look at how colour changes the way in which we see the image.

I enjoyed the challenge of looking for images that suited both format but on occasions I was unable to see what would work best and just took the picture. To my eye, both presentations work. The last two images demonstrate this quite well. The security guard image on the left benefits from the colour pallette. The colours complement each other and add interest without overpowering the subject. The elderly lady image looks beter in monochrome. The colours of the shop front and the vehicles, in what was already a busy scene, distracted from the subject and clashed in an uncomfortable way. In monochrome there is still interest in the background but it does distract.

I found that the colour images allowed blurred images to still be pleasing. The one image that is completely out of focus was a mistake, but when I reviewed it I found the colours and abstract nature pleasing (that might be just my personal taste)

I enjoyed the way that similar or complimentary colours could be used to guide the viewer’s eye through the composition, whereas monochrome images relied more on depth of field, leading lines or other composition rules.

I cannot say that I have a favorite presentation. However, prior to this exercise almost all of my street photography was processed in monochrome. From now on I will be actively looking for opportunities to use colour as I really enjoyed what was for me a new way of seeing.

I have a few favourite images, each for different reasons. My least obvious favourite is the image of the woman in the green top passing by the green construction fence. This image made me feel good because I saw her walking down the street saw the fence and moved into position just in time to take the shot. I also enjoyed the irony of the “kitchen closed” signs on the fenced off demolished building and monochrome. And loved those amazing reds in some of the colour images and how they lead you in.

1.1 Eyewitnesses?

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Brief:

Find some examples of news stories where ‘citizen journalism’ has exposed or highlighted abuses of power. How do these pictures affect the story, if at all? Are these pictures objective? Can pictures ever be objective? Write a list of the arguments for and against. For example, you might argue that these pictures do have a degree of objectivity because the photographer (presumably) didn’t have time to ‘pose’ the subjects, or perhaps even to think about which viewpoint to adopt. On the other hand, the images we see in newspapers may be selected from a series of images and how can we know the factors that determined the choice of final image?

Think about objectivity in documentary photography and make some notes in your learning log before reading further.

Research:

The Shooting of Walter Scott.

This terrible incident received global media coverage, it captures the moment just prior to a police officer shooting dead a black man as he is running away from him. The fact that this was a black man is important to the context of this image as it captured “violence inflicted on Black communities by the state” Black Lives Matter (2013)

I researched this image using several sources. I found that the context subtly changed depending upon the publisher. In general, the context of a “terrible crime being committed” (my words) ran throughout. The published image is a still taken from a video filmed by a bystander Feidin Santana a Dominican immigrant who was walking to work and observed the incident as it unfolded. Is the image Objective? I believe that the image is objective because the photographer captured it surreptitiously without the knowledge of the participants and could not have influenced the scene in any way. However, the image, and indeed the video from which it is taken is technically not entirely objective in that it didn’t show the lead up to the event. It is not clear whether this was through photographer choice or just being absent at the start. These considerations take nothing away from the fact that this image depicts a terrible event, which has since been recognised as murder, which shows the last few minutes of this young man’s life.

The image and video were later accepted by a court as incontrovertible proof that the accused’s account of events was highly inaccurate. So, in this case, the camera did not lie but the perpetrator did! The photographer cited for the video was Feidin Santana a Dominican immigrant who was walking to work. Without his evidence in the form of this video, it is highly likely that a grave miscarriage of justice would have ensued.

The context to the image on the CBS News website (CBS News (2015) was unsensational and balanced in its approach to the incident. A similar article on another website “Mother Jones” (mother jones 2017) couched it within a detailed and highly, in my opinion rightly, emotive description of the events and the trial. The Mother Jones article recounts the event and the subsequent trial from a different but no less valid perspective, I personally see her perspective as more valid.

2. Glenn Mills Attacking his Wife.

PAY--Knife-wielding-main — Paul Hooper (2015)

The images shown here are again taken by the publisher from a video of the incident. Rather different to the previous image which depicts an abuse of power by the state, these images depict a man violently assaulting his wife. Are these images objective? Yes, I believe that the images themselves are because they came from a fixed camera which recorded the images automatically without human intervention. The presentation of the images, however, may not be objective. In this case, the images appeared in the Irish Mirror Newspaper, Irish Mirror (2015) and the description of events uses emotive language for sensationalism. Notwithstanding this, it was a serious incident and the images served as evidence in court for the prosecution of the offender.

3. Mentally ill man being Restrained.

8bbd19dc5e72fed5f40d782db7856d60cbfdd891-2 — Nick McKenzie (2018)

This image appeared on the Australian news media website “The Age” The Age (2015). Again showing abuse of power by agents for the state, that being six police officers violently restraining a mentally ill citizen. Again this image came from a video of the incident. Is the image objective? I have to say yes because, again, they came from a fixed camera which recorded the images automatically without human intervention. The external context for the image, that is the text or reported story, is not objective in that it uses very emotive language and for a newspaper, where you would expect balanced reporting of facts, I found the reporting to be biased. Nevertheless, the video is extremely hard to watch and it is obvious that unnecessary force and incidents of physical abuse took place. Interestingly the still images of the incident are easier to view than the video footage because they do convey in a single frame the violence of the event or the demeanor of the police officers involved.

Reflection

I found it harder than you might think to find still photographs taken by citizen photographers. I thought that with the ubiquity of mobile phones encouraging people to photograph incidents there would be lots of examples. However, these citizens who are both unfortunate enough to witness and brave enough to stay and record the event prefer video to stills capture.

The use of mobile phones to capture abuse of power on the part of the state spawned the use of “body cameras” for many services such as the police, fire service even traffic wardens. Is this big brother in action? or beneficial use of technology? The use of devices to capture images of events on both sides or any dispute or incident feels like digital imaging warfare with footage used for proof of guilt or innocence. It is yet to be seen if the use of such devices or knowledge of their use will reduce abuses of power by those that can. Only time will tell.

Whilst the video footage has a very strong narrative the still images are entirely flexible in their’s and are dependent upon the context of the accompanying text for the viewer to make sense of them. For example here are three fictional headlines that would completely change the narrative of the image:

Violent Offender Brought Down by Brave Wounded Cop!
Psychotic Woman on Rampage Disarmed by Brave bystander!
Violent Robbery Suspect Finally Felled by Victoria Police!

Using these images for such stories would be morally intolerable, but the point is that the photographer is not in control of the image once it is released into the media and it is possible for it to be used in very different contexts to the original intention.

Bibliography

Crimesider Staff. (2015).S.C. police officer charged for shooting caught on tape. [online]. CBS News. Available from: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mayor-south-carolina-police-officer-charged-with-murder-in-shooting-after-traffic-stop/ . Last accessed 16/05/2019.

Black Lives Matter. (2013). Black Lives Matter Website. [online]. Black Lives Matter. Available from: https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/herstory/. Last Accessed 16/05/2019.

Michael Sokolove. (2017). What Does It Take To Convict a Cop?. [online]. Mother Jones. Available from: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/michael-slager-trial-walter-scott-police-shooting-north-charleston-south-carolina-3/.Last Accessed 16/05/2019.

Nick McKenzie. (2018). Beaten, abused, humiliated and filmed by Victoria Police. [online]. The Age. Available from: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/michael-slager-trial-walter-scott-police-shooting-north-charleston-south-carolina-3/. Last Accessed 16/05/2019.

Paul Hooper. (2015). Drunken husband caught on camera holding knife to wife’s throat as she fights for her life. [online]. Irish Mirror. Available from: https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/world-news/drunken-husband-caught-camera-holding-5198491. Last Accessed 16/05/2019.