All photographers are liars
My title does sound too strong, but I think it reveals something about the massive use of photography by newspapers and magazines as a the ultimating tool for stating that what they are writing is true. Photos are obviously not a reflection of reality, far from it.
The examples that you can see in this article, whether it’s the MySpace cropping above or the set up Georgia pics, are blatant lies. However I think that the essence of photography is leading to permanent lies. Following are some of the factors that make
- Intentions
Which mindset are you before taking your pictures? Before going to take pictures at a wedding, in the nature for picturing birds or in a war zone, you’ll have an opinion on the topic or an idea of how you are going to shoot. This subjectivity will influence the outcome of your photography session.
For a freelance news photographer, the intentions will often be to have spectacular images that will sell good and earn him more money. - Choices
By choosing the pictures you show, you take control of what people are going to see and think about the event or subject you’ve photographed. This is obvious for newspaper pictures, but you also make a choice of the pictures you will print or keep from your holidays or any other event. - Cropping
Famous french photo-reporter Henri Cartier-Bresson always refused that his photos get cropped before being published in magazines. Unfortunately, pictures nowadays are cropped almost every time before publication, often to dramatize the situation.
The picture above is a funny example of how cropping can be used to prettify things and show only what will make you look good. - Habits / tradition
Notice how corporate photos all look alike? That’s for a good reason, people get an idea of how a corporate portrait should look like. Even if some companies try to be different from time to time, most will go the traditional way, thus not taking any risk.
Same thing happens when you go to photography school, there you get conditionned to shoot a particular event the way you are supposed to. The problem with this is that as the viewers get the habits of seeing things this particular way, it becomes very hard to change the way of shooting things or you might face rejection. - Image manipulation
This is the point where the lie is intended. It’s very commonly used in fashion magazines to make people look better, sometimes giving birth to photoshop disasters. It’s often used on war photos to make the situation look worst by adding rockets or smoke.
A recent case: staged Georgia pictures
A Georgian photographer working for Reuters, David Mdzinarishvili, recently staged photos to feed the western medias with pictures attesting that Russia committed atrocities in Georgia. You get two examples of the manipulation here, and you can also take a look at this russian analysis of two other pictures, with a guy acting in different situations.
The images shown here were published on Reuters website, some have been taken off the site afterwards. Anyway it’s not new to set up pictures to influence the public opinion, it was done in Bosnia as well.
The first picture above was captioned: ” Dead woman being carried away by the georgian soldiers from the town of Gori”. However the dead woman holds on to the nurse. Reuters changed the caption afterwards. The second one shows a screaming desperate man sitting… at the same place where the first one was shot.
These two photos, showing an elderly couple crying their dead son, answer framing needs with a moving dead body and old people acting.
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Thank you for this precious and brilliant article!
Those “staged” Georgia photos should not be an example of how all photojournalists work. That is a huge generalization.
I am studying photojournalism at a University right now, and I believe most photojournalists strive to convey the truth in their photographs. Otherwise, they would have picked another profession, like studio or wedding photography, where they would most likely make more money.
Weddings, photographing birds and Myspace photos are completely different subjects altogether. They require no objectivity at all. Of course wedding photographers are going to try to capture the best-looking moments from the wedding because that’s how people want to remember their day. That’s what they’re getting paid to do.
This article hardly makes sense at all, not to mention all the grammatical errors. Next time, write about something you actually understand.
At Michelle:
If you were not so caught up in your fury you would understand a few things.
1. The title is sensational. Why? Because it grabbed your attention. No matter if it was positive or negative attention.
2. Not ALL photojournalists are not in it to get the truth. That by itself is a huge generalization. Granted, you may be in it for truth, but not all people are. Once again, sensational photographs WILL get sold.
3. Your grammar and over all slam of the article is offensive. The author of this blog is Swiss. In Switzerland, English is not the official language, French is. Next time do some reading before you flame someone about their grammar. You’ll sound more intelligent and not so culturally insensitive.
(Note: I do not know whether or not the author of this blog grew up speaking French or any of the other common languages in Switzerland. I’m just using what I have read about the author to defend him)
Haha! Even I cannot get everything typed correctly!
I was going to answer to Michelle, but Neillium did it before me. We thank you Michelle for your very clever ideas and I hope you will succeed in your studies in photography. But there are a few things you should think about before you write:
“Otherwise, they would have picked another profession, like studio or wedding photography, where they would most likely make more money.”
-> Sorry honey, you make a lot less money photographying weddings. I know someone who is doing that for a living and he doesn’t go very often on holliday.
“They require no objectivity at all.”
-> What do you mean? That all weddings are fake? That a wedding day is not a nice day? Should wedding photographers take the worst moments of that day? You’re the one who is not making sense Michelle. Actually you are generalising and dispising wedding photographers a lot more than the man who wrote this article. You should start studying philosophy and discussing about the meaning of “objectivity”. You might be surprised.
I have to apologise about my English grammar, I haven’t written and spoken it for a little while. But I’m sure that Michelle will correct this for me.
N.B. In Switzerland, there are 4 official languages (German, French, Italian, Rumantsch).
Excellent article.
I nice article with excellent and topical illustrations! And a catchy title…
The last two photos were NOT staged. They just used different camera lenses. The first one was taken from far away with one type of lens, and the second one was taken very close with other lens, thats why it seams that the body is at a different distance from the old men.
Take a look at the body. How do you move it without changing the folds in the jean? Also, the body is right in the gutter of the street IN BOTH PHOTOS. Did they move that also? That must have been tough.
PS: The first photo is simply BRILLIANT
Seen it before, but still amazes me whenever I look at it.
Michelle, I apologize for the grammar mistakes, they may be the reason why you didn’t understand the point of my article.
First, the title “All photographers are liars” is inspired by Seth Godin book “All Marketers are liars”. It’s a catchy title, but it doesn’t mean that they intend to deceive people with every shot they take.
I have no doubt that almost every photojournalist wants to do good and has no cynical thoughts when working. However it does happen, much more often than you think, that photos are set up or putted in a context that will give it a different meaning, just to influence the opinion.
Also, wedding photography or war photography are more linked than you think. In both case, you have clients that want their event to be seen the way they want people to see it. Western media want to show Russia as the bad guy, and they found a photographer that gave them those pictures. Photos are always there to serve a purpose, whether it is to say “look how much we love each other and how happy we are”, “look, the russian are killing people” or “look I am very attractive, why don’t you send me some nice comments that I’ll never get in real life”.
But my point was about the essence of photography, not about the media process. Wedding is a life-long relationship, war is about history that often can’t even be explained in 500 pages books, photography is about the moment, trying to catch a piece of what happened.
The thing that you obviously don’t understand is that reality is complex, you can’t fix it on a picture. People often think that the pictures they see are reality because what they see is real people. This is where the concept of photography becomes a lie, in the perception that people have of what they are being shown.
Charles, the body seems to me to have been moved, although you are right that it is arguable. But the other pictures make a pretty good case for believing that it’s been staged, the fact that Reuters took some pictures out of their website and changed some captions does lead me to think that the serie has been staged too.
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what if your brilliant expose of staged photographs in georgia turns out to be using real photographs?
charles already told you that the last two were not staged or atleast there is no proof that they were staged.
also the third picture, where the man sitting and crying need not be staged only because - perhaps the picture was taken before the body in the second picture was carried, the man is probably a person living in the same village etc,etc - Again, using the same background does not make the situation or the photograph staged.
As for the second image - the person might have been seriously wounded and later died - the fact that reuters did not remove the picture but only changed the caption hints rather at that possiblity than being completely faked.
Also let me talk about the motivation for faking photographs - in the heat of war, their own country being occupied and violence everywhere some clever Georgian guy who has contacts/works for reuters takes some special time off - to stage photographs where there are evidence of violence everywhere. Not only does he jeopardy his own proffesional crediblity but also the credibility of his own country by these doubtful and unnecessary actions - where all the time he as a easier option to just chronicle the existing violence without any difficulty.
Rather maybe all this talk/discourse about faked photographs is a attempt to hide the brutality of the war by claiming that the damage done was “faked” by one side of the conflict. So the next time you see somebody brave enough to take pictures of war victims you need not worry or take them seriously - there is the possiblity that they are faked after all?
What a fake article, the only thing staged and lying here is the article itself and your desire for recognition and praise.
wake up, you have inferior intelligence - right now atleast -not even remotely capable of discussing how photographs are faked. Perhaps a better example would be how communist leadership propaganda photo ops were manipulated?
You can not analyze faking photographs like you talk about marketing or to your mates - i.e. in a provactive manner.
I cant easily tell that the last two photos were not stage. all you need to do is look at the footpath beside the dead body to notice that it is in fact in the same spot.
The reason why the two shots appear different from each other is because the angles are different.
Hola, en la 3ª fotografía el hombre que esta de pie mirando la escena no es el mismo que esta en la 4ª sentado llorando, se parecen pero no son el mismo, el primero tiene mas barba y tiene el pelo de color mas oscuro. En la 4ª fotografia el hombre muerto todavia permanece en la escena, detras del hombre sentado en primer plano, si os fijais bien parte de su cabeza aparece por la derecha y sus pantalones por la izquierda.
Y referente a los hierros marcados con interrogantes no aparecen en la 3ª foto debido a la posicion del fotografo que en la 4ª foto se desplaza hacia atras, se arrodilla y baja la camara.
Ah, y no escribo en ingles para que no se pueda criticar mi pesima gramatica inglesa!. jajaja
rt27, choosing those pictures was a risky choice I agree. Maybe I shouldn’t have putted them here because they attract all the attention and that people don’t seem to pay attention to anything else in the article.
Everyone knows the communist photo manipulation, so I wanted to show something different. I thought that using an example with western media propaganda would be more interesting to think on how powerful are war photography. Bus as Noam Chomsky once said: “Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.”
You are at least right on one thing, I should have chosen examples that could not be argued. There are tons of examples of american media faking things to make a point, but apparently you don’t want to know about it.
The motivation to fake pictures is very simple, influence the public opinion to think a certain way. You probably understand that chinese or russian media do it and why, why can’t you understand that it could happen in America? Because westerners are pure and do no evil? Please, we are not in a Hollywood movie.
Here is a documentary you should watch: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5631882395226827730&ei=2fi8SPKwHYSG2QK4j4TeDA&q=manufacturing+consent
E.Mateo, Yo no soy seguro que esas imagenes son falso, me habria elegir otras peliculas para ilustrar ese articulo. Como tu puedes a ver, muchas personas son nerviosas por esta razon. Por favor no critica mi pesima gramatica espanola
Hey..photographers like to lie a little, because they have to - but situation is not so bad as looks
Ok, seriously - I like this article - interesting to look from another perspective.
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totally agree with u Mirko and come on, posts with perfect english are boring!! beside, this post is not about english grammar anyway
Oh and for the photos with the dead son, the body can be easily moved without changing the folds… there’s this thing call PHOTOSHOP (look it up Charles). That was the first thing i learned from my photoshop class. SO EASY!
Very, very good post. And congrats for joining 9rules!
I feel like my whole life is a lie…
OH Photoshop, How you have changed the integrity of an art form.
[...] “All Photographers are Liars” -a blog from Designer-Daily.com about how photographers will crop and photoshop images to skew [...]
#19
There’s also this thing called Occam’s Razor (look it up #19). That was the first thing I learned from my common sense class. SO SIMPLE!
So, what could be simpler than moving a dead body, hiring two actors, clone the foldings so they look alike (AND the footpath, as Qbrushes pointed out) and sending BOTH pictures to Reuters hoping noone will notice?
…let me think…
…OMIGOD OMIGOD OMIGOD, I know… different lenses!!!1!!!one!!!11!
Very interesting… anyway, I don’t trust medias.
regardless of these particular photos being faked or not..
there is no doubttttttttt that the west does this shit on a daily basis…
All governments do it..
and the american government is the worst of allll of them combined..murdurers!