Can Documentary Photography Be Objective - Essay Example

Can Documentary Photography be Objective? A picture, no doubt, worth a thousand words and camera, as a mechanical instrument, unconsciously recreates what it sees. Photographic history speaks volumes about the power, influence, appeal and amount of connectivity this medium provides. It informs, educate, influence, motivate and persuade. But in this paper I am going to discuss flip side of the coin, the story behind photograph! It is an investigation of reality about the reality showcased. It questions, can documentary photography be objective? Can a photographer go beyond his understanding and vision to dig out the truth and report objectively? Does that particular (any) powerful photograph was the factual moment or the magical creation of photographic artistry? The genre of documentary photography is surrounded by doubts and controversies since its inception in 19th century. The term documentary photography is, ‘used precisely as evidence of what occurred, so that its historical significance is employed further to invest its status as a truthful and objective account (or representation) of what has happened’.1The word ‘document’ implies evidence that may be derived from medieval term documentum, used for official papers or refers to an account supported by the law. It is a common belief that evidence of document is not doubted, therefore, documentary photography is considered to reside in same frame of authority.2 To viewers, photograph appears as a self generated image of certain incident, as it may have created itself. They are aware of the presence of photographer on scene and it reassures them about the truth and facts presented, the photographer stays out of the image transparently. From a Phenomenological point of view, the photograph registers itself as an absolute reality. This powerful effect contributes to the mystic value of transparency that is ascribed to photography.3 It evokes the perception as Roland Barthes states, “every photograph is a certificate of presence...a reality one can no longer touch”.4However, Documentary photography is mostly questioned for being objective and neutral. Documentation of events for a purpose makes it crucial to question that how much a photographer can influence the way a picture is presented. This paper analyses some iconic documentary photographs in order to learn about the level of objectivity their influential photographers practiced. There are different perspectives about the concept of objectivity in documentary photography. Some are totally convinced that it is possible and some utterly deny the possibility of its existence. Hilton Barber believes that his photographs are truthful documentation of a particular culture and it should be recorded as accurate and realistic as possible. Rosen, on the other hand, believes that a photograph represents the interpretation part of the event rather than factual description. Confronting the qualm about documentary photography, it is naive for some progressive photographers to suggest that vision can be impartial and represent factual information.5 Evidence of prejudice and partiality in documenting the facts are deep rooted in history. Zehr states, “...for early photographers, truth meant verisimilitude: that is, truth meant that the picture looked exactly like what would be seen from the camera’s view (with one eye closed since the ordinary camera does not have stereo vision”.6In early days of photography, it was considered to be an objective, factual and scientific representation of reality and the world seen from camera eye. Despite all the claims of objectivity, it was evident that documentary photography is an interpretative and more artful form of it.7 In late 19th and early 20th century, colonial ethnographic photography is the initial forms of documentary photography that recorded cultural and social aspects of colonized life. These photographs became part of the racist language and presented primitive lives of colonized. It is crucial to consider the context in which these photographs were taken and current work should distinguished from earlier practices.8 Photographic history can be summed up in two different imperatives, i.e. beautification and truth telling. The later is that is measured not only by scientific notion of value-free truth but also by ethical aspect of factual reporting adapted from 19th century models and (newer) independent journalism.9Richard Bolton explains American system of information by saying that Americans still believe in, “illusion of receiving objective information”.10 A photograph can be treated as narrowly selective transparency veracity that gives all photographs authority, interest, seductiveness, the work that photographers do is no generic exception to the usually shady commerce between art and truth. Even when photographs are most concerned with mirroring reality, they are still haunted by tacit imperatives of taste and conscience.11 In America, photographs appeared on scene in 1839 and were quickly accepted and absorbed. Extensive experiments were done to make the whole process faster and inexpensive. During Civil War, it entered in the middle-class culture and immediately established its huge following. Documentary photography developed in this period and critics characterized it to be from the domain of journalism. This categorization implied that documentary photographers are skilled technicians and recorders who passively observe and document the social scene without any artistic expression. On the other hand, documentary photographer acknowledged this categorization to entertain and buff the perceived realism of their form of image. They positioned it as facts that are collected or denied have aesthetic or political agenda. There are particular reasons for such overwhelming belief in photographic realism. For historians, photographs are crucial documentation that presents a mirror to past evidences. Public and scholarly belief in photograph is rooted in the idea that photograph is an unconscious (mechanical) imitation of reality itself. 12Susan Sontag highlighted the crux of this belief in On Photography, “Photographs do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire.”13Historians, scholars and students rarely question and test the objectivity of these pieces of reality as compared to any other form of evidence. For instance, we consider the subjectivity of author while reading an autobiography but a historical photograph, on the other hand, is treated as a mechanic imitation and inherently truthful. Therefore, it is considered as an objective artifact.14 Photographer was thought to be an unbiased observer but considering the fact that different people cannot take the similar photograph of the same thing. It brought us to the conclusion that photographs are not only the evidence or record of what an individual sees but an evaluation of it. It is more than just seeing; it is “photographic seeing”15It is implied, “...Even the literal image had a subjective element. In addition to the abstraction generated by seeing the world in black-and-white, what photographers choose to photograph, and what they chose to include in the photograph-how it was framed-was highly subjective. Jerry L. Thompson states about photograph, “It was a view from a particular point of view”.16The following example of an iconic photograph confirms Sontag’s concerns about the photographer’s ability to construct the reality and manipulate it for creating desired effects. Alexander Gardner’s “The home of a Rebel Sharpshooter”17 Alexander Gardner with his assistants Timothy O’Sullivan and James Gibson photographed an unfortunate dead solider in a series representing the tragedy of war in the aftermath of Battle of Gettysburg. The dramatic pose and position of the dead solider add to the pathos of beholder. Gardner triggered the emotions and association of viewer by carefully crafting the description of position and place in his notes. The central place between two rocks, crevice that he used to aim, tree branches, soldier’s clothing and riffle speaks volumes about war torn melancholy. It tells the complete story of how soldier had wounded by shell, how he had lied down to wait his approaching death. After moving generations, the Gardner’s photograph proved to be fabricated and manipulated for making it more appealing and striking.18 Actual location of the death was forty yards away from the sharpshooter’s den. Photographer found the den more picturesque and dragged or moved the body to prop it between these two rocks. In fact, soldier was an infantry man who was shot while climbing up the hill. In another version of the photograph, there is a blanket that may have been used to move the corpse from its actual position. The weapon in photograph was not used by sharpshooters. Surprisingly, it is used in many Gettysburg photographs taken by Gardner and maybe it was his own prop. Gardner’s focus on this one body also points the lack of subjects due to the fact that most of the bodies were buried at the time this photograph is taken. Moreover, in his sketch books, Gardner recalls that he saw the body again after four months the battle ended. It was next to impossible that body is left unburied after four months and rifle is left there after hunters visiting the area in large number.19 Considering the instances of manipulation and fakery, it is naive to believe that documentary can be objective. Susan Sontag was highly convinced that photographs are manipulated, she explained, “To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed...photographs, which fiddle with the scale of the world, themselves get reduced, blown up, cropped, retouched, doctored, tricked out”.20 Luyendijk worked as a journalist in Middle East, he states, “what comes out of the mouth of a reporter is not The Truth; it is an interpretation of a selection”.21 And Yevgeni Khaldei’s famous photograph, “The Decisive Moment” exemplifies Luyendijk’s perceptions quite perfectly. Yevgeni Khaldei’s “The Decisive Moment”22 One of the most famous and iconic photographs of WWII is Yevgeni Khaldei’s “The Decisive Moment”. It shows a Soviet soldier hoisting the Red army’s flag on Reichstag in Berlin after the fall of Berlin.23Historic importance of this photograph is seldom quoted as, “For Russians, the Reichstag photo is as potent a symbol of victory as Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal’s shot of the U.S. flag being raised on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima for Americans”.24 The fact behind this photograph is extensive manipulation. Yevgeni Khaldei staged this whole scene after three days of the fall, on May 2, 1945.It refer to the fact that photograph is not taken at particular historic moment that is presented. In order to make it realistic and give the impression of ending war, the smoke and clouds on the photograph were engraved on negative afterwards. In another photograph of the series one of the soldier’s wrist watches is edited because it gave the impression of lootings by Soviet soldiers.25According to Ernet Volland26 the actual picture was too dark and Khaldei had no problem in doctoring them as he would have proudly told that this is a good picture and he made it.Volland further attributed Reichstag photo as, “120 percent propaganda…Stalin badly wanted the combination of Reichstag and the red flag”.27 The photograph is the reproduction and manipulation of fact about a historic moment merely on desire of possessing the reality. Jackson’s photograph “Mt of the Holy Cross” is another example of creating what was desired by thousands of devout. William Henry Jackson’s “Mt of the Holy Cross”28 Jackson’s photograph “Mt of the Holy Cross” has an enduring impact on American culture. It is the iconic image of mountain of holy cross located in Colorado. The legendary mountain won many awards for Jackson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow got inspired by the image and wrote the poem “Cross of Snow” .Many Christians perceived it to be the indication from nature that is inviting them to participate in Manifest Destiny.29 Jackson was an established photographer and he created images of immense proportion, Holy Cross is one of such images. Jackson’s friend Moran painted the scene and changed the foreground by bisecting the rocks on this legendary mountain. Ironically, Jackson also made alterations in the original image as it was necessary to create the magic. Behind this perfect Cross image, there is the half Cross because its one arm was melted due to spring. Actually, Jackson had to wait for the spring in order to take his heavy equipment to the vantage point across from the mountain. Unluckily, one of the cross arm had melted, but Jackson restored the arm in his darkroom. The manipulation may make the objectivity of documentary photography doubtful but it gave the most exquisite icon of western expansion to America.30However, Jackson’s may be working on Tuchman’s ritualistic process to make the perfect photograph that was in demand. According to Gaye Tuchman any piece of work of objectivity asks for an elongated ritualistic process in order to make the perfect truth that audience demands.31It depicts that things are socially constructed and therefore, very subjective in their nature. There is no objectivity or if there was, it does not exist any longer.32 Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother”33 One of the most popular photographs representing great depression, “Migrant Mother” is reprinted thousands of time as it captured and moved people on large scale. Dorothea Lange’s image of “Migrant Mother” taken in March 1936 at the Pea-Pickers Camp in Nipomo acquired iconic position in American history.34 Geoffrey Dunn states: No other image in the American archives resonates with the emotional urgency and tragic poignancy of this photograph…Indeed, Lange’s somber portrait had achieved near mythical status, symbolizing, if not defining, an entire era in our nation’s history.35 Despite all the enthusiastic approval and applaud, according to Dunn, the photograph continuously remained unexplained and controversial. Identity of the subject (Florence) in the photograph was not made public until 1970s when she (Florence) expressed her furious remarks about behind the scene realities. According to her she was not paid for the picture and not even asked for her name by the photographer. She felt ‘exploited’ as despite the assurance from photographer, photograph was sold and she was not provided with even a copy. Lange (photographer) recalled more or less the same in 1960s that she didn’t asked for her subject’s identity or history. All she knew was her age and the food her family is getting from fields and by killing birds.36 In her field noted Lange states, “Seven hungry children. Father is native Californian…because of failure of the early pea crop; these people had just sold their tires to buy food”.37 Dunn remarks on this record, “Lange was uncharacteristically remiss in ascertaining information about her subject. The little (amount of facts and information) she did record was largely misleading and factually incorrect…through her negligence, in effect, Lange perpetrated a case of historic deception on the American public”.38 On Lange’s emphasis about selling tires to get the food, Dunn refer to Florence’s son remarks, Troy Owens, who said, “There’s no way we cold our tires, because we didn’t have any to sell…I don’t believe Lange was lying, I just think she had one story mixed up with another. Or she was borrowing to fill in what she didn’t have…”39 Jacob Riis’s “Bandit’s Roost”40 “In his famous 1988 photograph Bandit’s Roost (probably taken by an associate in an alley off of Mulberry Street in what is now New York’s Chinatown district).,Riis argued that the alley, like the tenement, was a breeding ground for disorder and criminal behaviour”.41 An old saying goes “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but the question with Riis’s photograph is, “what do the pictures say about the situation in a thousand words?”42If Riis’s photograph of Bandit’s Roost could talk, it would have told a different story. Riis’s photography was not unbiased documentation of fact but there was an agenda to persuade New York’s middle and upper classes for reforms. He captured what supports his purpose and ignored those that negated his perceptions and vision. It is highly unlikely that his picture is completely objective and truthful.43 Riis was one of the pioneers of most acclaimed projects that established documentary photography as a tool of social reform. Dramatic essence of his images shocked the world. However, Bandit’s Roost is the product of Riis’s own vision and understanding about immigrant and tenement life in New York rather than a collection of sociological data. He crafted dramatic urban scenes by considering his specific middle class clients. Riis’s own immigrant background couldn’t keep him from reflecting the prejudice of dominant culture towards immigrants. The title Bandit’s Roost suggests an aura of menace and first glance at the photograph confirms it. Two men appear to be the guards of the gang who can threaten anyone entering in their territory. The man at right hand appears to be their leader considering the impact of his commanding posture and position. Riis didn’t justify other ten figures in the photograph, the leaning woman in window, three figures in other porch and child in background. There is nothing in their behaviour that confirms criminal tendency. If they were involved in criminal activities, how they posed for camera with such ease? How they confronted Riis and accompanying police officials? Ironically, Riis wants his viewers to believe that he maintained this peace and won their cooperation to pose as a notorious gang. 44About camera Riis stated, “I had use for it, and beyond that I never went’...What mattered was not aesthetics but what the pictures showed. Riis had a similar use for words and statistics...They were merely tools to persuade New Yorkers to witness what was right in front of their eyes.”45Prejudice evoked by a reality shaped through false image has great consequences, Sontag aptly stated in her books On Photography, “The consequences of lying have to be more central for photography than they ever can be for painting, because the flat, usually rectangular images which are photographs make a claim to be true that painting can never make. A fake painting (one whose attribution is false) falsifies the history or art. A fake photograph...falsifies reality”.46 Thompson analyses Walker Evan’s photographs and comment that they appear to be straight documentary photographs of buildings and photograph but in fact, they are deeply personalized. As for Alfred Steiglitz, truth was an artist’s personal emotional state and skills to convey his own truth. These ideas suggest truth as “fidelity to the subjective experience of the artist”.47 Another controversial example of photographic manipulation is ‘Death of a Loyalist Militiaman’ by 20th century’s most celebrated documentary photographer. This photograph often known as “The falling soldier” shows the shocking moment; A Republican Spanish Civil War soldier was shot dead in Cerro Muriano and it seems that Capa captured it just at that unbelievable moment. Phillip Knightley was the first who pointed the controversial nature of photograph.48 Robert Capa’s “Death of a Loyalist Militiaman”49 The event is staged according to experts, “it was too perfect not to have been staged”50According to the newspaper Independent the event is fake and staged by Capa himself. The location of the shootout was to factual as it was taken in a village called Espejo that is almost 30 miles from the said location “Cerro Muriano”. The hill and surroundings in the series does not match with any location in Cerro Muriano. In addition to the location, the camera used for taking this photograph is reported to be wrong according to historian Jose Manuel Superregui.51Capa staged the whole death scene or not it confirmed Barthes idea, “The photograph itself is in no way animated (I do not believe in “lifelike” photographs), but it animates me: this is what creates every adventure”.52 Andre Breton remarked. ‘The invention of photography dealt a mortal death blow to old means of expression, as much in painting as in poetry, where automatic writing...is a veritable photography of thought.’53 Considering the apparent nature of camera as a machine, Breton referred it to be ‘a blind instrument’ Breton pointed out that camera can only capture unlike human eyes that can understand what it sees. Its inherent nature of blindness makes it unable to prejudice or manipulate the factual nature of an event it records. Concept of ‘index’ by C.S. Peirce can help in theorizing the association between object and its image. According to Peter Wollen’s phrase, index is a sign where there is an existential bond between itself and object. Smoke can indicate the fire or direction of wind; it is the object that photographs itself. Later theorists, most importantly Roland Barthes proposed the motivated sign concept that is similar to and motivated by the object itself.54 André Bazin’s (1945) eloquently argued that inherent nature of photography make it objective: For the first time an image of the world is formed automatically, without the creative intervention of man...Photography affects us like a phenomenon in nature, like a flower or a snowflake...The objective nature of photography confers on it a quality of credibility absent from all other picture-making.55 Bazin is unlikely to e aware of Peirce’s concept of index, but for him, indexicality is crucial to photography’s realism as reality establishes itself through camera eye. He identifies surrealist interest in photography is due to the same attribute. He argues that in surrealism, the logical divide between real and imaginary is vague as photograph produces the image of reality itself. Indexicality provides the base for our understanding of photography’s realism. It evokes a sense of photography as an unusual process in which object translated itself into an image that sometimes surpass the object itself.56 One of the most controversial advocate of photographic realism, Roland Barthes stresses, ‘the realists do not take photography for a “copy” of reality, but for an emanation of past reality: a magic, not an art’.57 What Barthes wants to emphasise here is that photograph is one of the most advanced and superior thing that human mind can create or can have created in order to reassure reality.58The Surrealists cherished photography due to its inherent potential to record not only surface reality but also the murky relationship that connects within. The output can beat any imagined scenario; it can prove to be the linchpin surreal in the real. Surrealist artist works on observation, be it the internal intricacies or external complications, these observations get to the point of objective documentation. For Surrealist subjectivity exceeds from objectivity but their final objective was the fusion of both.59Roland Barthes confronts positivists theory about photographic objectivity, “...not by analysing the process of its production, but by focusing on its effects, on its intimacy with individual and its ‘desire effects’”.60 Through his personal experiences, Barthes analyses the aspects of photographic relationship between sign and the referent. He observes that unlike painting or writing, photographic referent is “...not the optionally real thing to which an image or a sign refers but the necessarily real thing which has been before the lens, without which there would be no photograph".61Unlike other mediums, subject has to be there in photography. It implies that the subject was neither present nor absent or may be both. 62Sontag states: Although there is sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are much an interpretation of world as paintings and drawings are.(However) Those occasions when the taking of photographs is relatively undiscriminating, promiscuous, or self –effacing do not lessen the didacticism of the whole enterprise.63 Barthes work is deeply rooted in the presence and absence and the relationship between punctum and studium. Studium refer to common perception, for instance, acceptance of its banality and its recording of accepted images. It is crucial to distinguish both as punctum is the notion that gives photography its ‘peculiar subjectivity’. It is single moment, a feature or a slight expression that has power to evoke, influence and persuade. Punctum can’t be experienced similarly by everyone as it is the individual viewer’s relationship with certain image.64 ‘Barthes is arguing this essence to be located not in the object itself, but in the process of its cognition by a viewer.’ Barthes not offers another photographic paradox: an attachment to external reality that can be only be truly realised through intense subjective investment. So intense, indeed, that at the end of Camera Lucida, Barthes declares the photograph ‘a new form of hallucination...a mad image, chafed by reality’ a status that is not so fat from Bazin’s ‘hallucination that is also a fact’.65 Sontag also confirms, “Surrealism lies at the heart of photographic enterprise: in the very creation of a duplicate world, of a reality in the second degree, narrower but more dramatic than the one perceived by the natural vision”.66In addition to that, Sontag’s idea of photographic appropriateness in order to make the photograph more powerful refers to the lack of objectivity in the whole process. It is all about selection of subject, place, frame and context in addition to photographer’s perceptions on a certain issue. Camera is indeed an observing station,67 and observations, knowingly or unknowingly, can be easily influenced by personal interests, money, prejudice or vision. The inherent impartiality of medium in recreating observed image seems to be an empty slogan. The very nature of documentary photography declares its subjective nature. It implies that the process has never been objective and will never achieve absolute objectivity. With technological advancements and invention of digital photography, chances and incentives for manipulation and distortion of reality became manifold. Contemporary photographer, Christopher Anderson of Magnum Photos completely believes in a subjectivity of his photography. In an interview with QTV host Jian Ghomeshi he said: I don’t believe in objectivity, I am subjective, what I do is a subjective thing and it is my responsibility to have a point of view and to tell you my point of view...Ultimately my responsibility is to try to do it in a way that is as honest as truthful way as I could do that... I am subjective and I want to be subjective and I am going to bring you what I feel is my opinion.68 Anderson, however, values and feels that he is personally responsible for the reality he is creating for the world. However, accepting a truth cannot equate the truthful documentation of facts. It is may be the stance that is more acceptable for agencies and people but it does not ensure factual and unbiased reporting in contemporary world. It seems as objectivity is confined to self-censorship and waiting for those who entertain the idea for the sake of it. No doubt camera click alone cannot serve the purpose of taking a photograph. It cannot inform and move its audience. An event needs to connect the dots in order to present a complete picture, someone surely has to fill in the blanks and give language to the silence of still moments. But it does not justify the practice of manipulation and fakery to alter, distort, and mutilate the reality. Documentary photography can never be objective, but who will present the truth in front of world in this age of digital manipulations, still remains a question. Work Cited Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. (trans. Richard Howard) London: Vintage, 1981. Byrt, Anthony. “Empty Fragments of a missing subject,”fionaamundsen.com.May 2003.web.17 March 2010. Curtis, James. “Making sense of documentary photography.” Making sense of Evidence series on History matters: the U.S. Survey .historymatters. gmu.edu, n.d. PDF file. Clarke, Graham. The photograph .New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1997. Lange, Dorothea. Migrant Mother, 1 Feb 1936, US Library of Congress, Washington. life.com, Web.15 March 2010. Frassanito, William. Gettysburg: A journey in Time. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975. Gardner, Alexander. The home of a Rebel Sharpshooter, July 1863.Civil War Photos,1861-1865/compiled by Hirst D.Milhollen and Donald H. Mugridge, Library of Congress, Washington DC. Goldman, A.J. “Iconic WWII photo staged.” usatoday.com. Associated Press.Web.16 June 2008. Jackson, William Henry.Mt of the Holy Cross. 1880-1890, Brigham Young University Harold B.Lee Library, L Tom Perry Special Collection: MSS 1608, contentdm.lib.byu.edu, Web, 13 March 2010. Jensen, Lauren. “The photographs of Jacob Riis: History in Relation to Truth.” Constructing the past 5.1 (2004): Illinois Wesleyan University. Web. 17 March 2010. “Mountain of Holy Cross.”, americanhistory.si.edu.National Museum of American History, .n.d. Web.13 March.2010. Khaldei, Yevgen. The Decisive Moment.1945. AP file photo, USAtoday.com.Web.14 March 2010. Khasnis, Giridhar. “Two women and a photograph.” Online edition of India’s National Newspaper. The Hindu.30 April 2006.Web.15 March 2010. Klinkenborg, Verlyn. “Where the other half lived.” Mother Jones 26, issue 4(2001):1-7. QTV, “Magnum Photo’s Christopher Anderson on QTV.”Youtube.com. QTV, 11 June 2008.Web. 17 March 2010. Riis, Jacob. Bandit’s Roost. 1890. masters-of-photography.com.Web.12 March 2010. Richard Bolton. The contest of meaning: Critical Histories of Photography (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1989) 222. Sontag, Susan. On Photography .New York: RosettaBooks, LLC, 1973. Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions, and Practices. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.1991. Waller, Margaret. A bigger picture: A manual of photojournalism in Southern Africa .Kenwyn: Juta & co. Ltd, 2000. Walker, Ian. City gorged with dreams: Surrealism and documentary photography in interwar Paris. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. Zaccani, Francesca. “The objectivity of photojournalism.”truthofphotograph.blogspot, 27 July 2008.Web.16 March 2010. Zehr, Howard. “Photographic truth and documentary photography.”WordpressMU, emu.edu, .wordpress.Web .17 March 2010. Read More