The Camera Never Lies

At long last I have got around to completing this exercise, which requires me to provide a 200 word response to the first three sections of Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism’ by Kendall L Walton.

The camera never lies – it can’t, because it’s inanimate. It faithfully displays a 2-d single point perspective version of whatever is in front of it.  The same is true of photographs – they faithfully display whatever it is they denote. Misleading and lies are human attributes, and we can as easily misinform with photographs as we can inform. The photographer chooses what is in the image. This has little to do with their manner of reproduction – and in any case old arguments about the nature of photographic realism are confounded by modern digital techniques. Currently we can as easily produce a photo of a fantasy as a reality.
The link between production technique and veracity has been broken. A photograph’s only claim to more than a superficial visual realism now depends on our trust in the manner of its production. We do not need to invoke fanciful notions about new ways of seeing. For the averagely sophisticated viewer, if we trust the source we trust the image. In this sense photographs are now firmly alongside other kinds of documents, written, graphic or object. In the long run I feel this is good for photography – unquestioning faith is a heavy burden to carry.

Realism – What makes a document (ii)

Some more reflection on this subject before I get to the 200 words.
If I don’t accept that the simple existence of a subject accounts for the perceived difference in realism between photos and other pictures, but I do accept a difference, what then is an alternative explanation. I can see two options: technical or cultural.
Technical: A photograph – film or digital – is caused by the interaction between photons and a sensor and some subsequent processing. This is not true of other forms of image making – so perhaps this is the key difference – a physical link. Me as a Roman Statue qualifies as a photo because there was a stream of photons moving from the statue and my glasses to the sensor. This seems a reasonable definition of a photo – I can think of no situation where it does not hold, but is it sufficient to account for the perception of realism and the power of photography (which Walton goes on to assert is a function of this realism)?

With apologies to Magritte – this is not a pile of laptops. By my proposed definition it is not even a photo of a pile of laptops because there is no direct link between the subject on the photo sensor and the pile of laptops. Yet most people I think would accept it as a realistic depiction of such. Similarly, irrespective of the post-modernist debate, most people would accept that Levine’s “After Walker Evans 4” is a realistic depiction of Allie Mae Burroughs, and yet it is not a photograph of her, by my definition or Walton’s.  By a similar token I believe that paintings of either would also be considered as less realistic.
Moving on to Walton’s final assertion – that photography is a new way of seeing – a way that allows us to see the past. He is very definite, we are not talking about imagining or perceiving, buy seeing into the past. Seeing – unless I have misunderstood is a two part process akin to photography. A stream of photons passes from the object to a sensor (our eye) and is then processed (by the brain) to register as an image (on our conscious). Take out the first part and we simply have memory or imagination. I do not see my long dead great grandfather when I look at a photo of him – in any way – I may remember him or register him or acknowledge that it is a photo but I do not see him because no photons have passed from my great grandfather to me. And yet – I accept that it is a realistic depiction and I feel that odd, and undefined, sense of connection to the individual in the photo. In truth, of course, it could be a photo of anyone.
If my argument makes sense then the power that photos exert is not because of any direct physical link to the object depicted. It is because I trust that the event or individual depicted actually existed – the photo does not prove it however.
What proves it – to me - is my trust in the source. I trust that Sherrie Levine has photographed the Walker Evans photo, and I trust that Walker Evans took a photo of Allie Mae Burroughs and I trust that no-one manipulated the image in between. I have little evidential basis for this trust except a willingness to believe what I am told.
In other words the power of photographs – and particularly documentary photographs – is a function of trust – a cultural attribute. We trust that the photographer is not lying to us. That is why some photo manipulations – such as the addition of extra smoke in a war photo – are considered wholly unacceptable, and others – such as the enhancement of lighting for dramatic purposes, while contentious are less frowned upon.
In my view the essential difference between photos and other artworks is down to cultural perceptions – many of which hail from historic perspectives – and a trust, or otherwise in the practices of the photography business. An example of this might be Mohamed Bourouissa whose works have the ring of authenticity and truth to them in spite of our knowing they are staged. we regard them as a document because we trust him – often for no more than cultural reasons.

Realism–What makes a document

What, then, is special about photography?
There is one clear difference between photography and painting. A photograph is always a photograph of something which actually exists. Even when photographs portray such nonentities as werewolves and Martians, they are nonetheless photographs of actual things: actors, stage sets, costumes. Paintings needn't picture actual things. A painting of Aphrodite, executed without the use of a model, depicts nothing real.

Walton, Transparent Pictures

Portrait of a Young Woman with a Unicorn: Raphael [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons	Portrait of the photographer as a roman statue

I’m struggling with this bit of the exercise. We are asked to give a 200 word reflective response to an extract from Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Realism – by Kendall Walton and I can’t help thinking it’s errant nonsense from beginning to end. Clearly that’s not a terribly rational response, so this is an attempt to help me get my head around just one bit of it – the quote above.

One of the above images is clearly a painting – the other clearly a photograph (digitally altered – but most people would regard it as a photo I think). My problem is that I would maintain that they demonstrate exactly the opposite of Walton’s assertion. I have never been a Roman statue – so it’s a photo of something that doesn’t exist. But..the statue exists, and I exist – so really it’s just two photos of some things that exist displayed simultaneously to create an effect I saw in my imagination by using items stored in my memory.
But what if we apply the logic to the painting. The lady apparently existed. Pillars exist – Raphael didn’t invent them – he’d seen pillars before and he’s reproduced them here – either from memory or by looking at some similar pillars. Aha..the unicorn! What is a unicorn – it’s a horse with a horn on its head. Horses exist.. etc. Horns exist..etc. So really this is a painting of some things that exist displayed simultaneously to create an effect Raphael saw in his imagination by using items stored in his memory.
Would the argument still hold if I had only used a single image – of myself or the statue? I think it would, as by selecting the timing and composition, depth of field and processing – a subset of the various realities available to me -  I produced an image that I saw first in my imagination using information (items) stored in my memory.
For Walton’s assertion to hold true the painting of Aphrodite would have to be executed by an artist who had never seen a woman, so that the end result would be completely imaginary – having no link to any previous experience of the artist. I think Escher would be more of a challenge to my suggestion, but even there the individual bits exist – at least in prototype, somewhere - and have simply been assembled in a manner which distorts single point perspective.
I may be missing something here but I’m not sure – certainly not in the digital medium it has become – that the claim that the key difference between painting and photography is the existence of the subject really holds water.