Can Digital Photography Represent Reality?
On March 3, 2010 Stepan Rudik, who had initially won the third prize in the World Press Photo Awards, was officially disqualified and stripped of his honors. In a statement, the World Press Photo foundation stated that his erasing of a sneaker visible behind the main subject of the photo, who was having his hand bandaged, was in violation of contest rules. The manipulation was discovered after requesting RAW files of the series from him.
I looked at the two versions of the photo in question, and what was removed was an area the size of a match’s top, undetectable to the naked eye. The disqualification has sparked a discussion on the Internet (among others on PDN Pulse, PDN’s professional photography blog). On PDN Pulse, David Walker argued that while he understood the fact that lines had to be drawn in the sand, to him this seemed arbitrary and was qualifying littering as armed robbery.
This controversy, together with some other scandals (think the wildlife photographer who was stripped of his title in January for allegedly using a “model” wolf), prompted me to revisit some of the work of Susan Sontag (“On Photography”) and the memorable conversation between Bill Jay and David Hurn (“On Being a Photographer”), both written when photography was still analog. (And in the case of “On Being a Photographer”, digital photography was only really getting started.) I was looking for answers to the re-ignited question: what IS photography, and more specifically, what is DIGITAL photography?
Is using a model wolf like Jose Luis Rodriguez so very different from erasing a small blurred sneaker from a photo? In both cases, reality is altered. Rodriguez allegedly did not disclose that the wolf he had photographed wasn’t wild. If that was indeed the case, then what we are seeing is not the “reality” of a wild animal jumping a fence, it is a hoax. In Rudik’s case, the sneaker removed from the picture could have likely been removed with analog methods as well, and removing it or leaving it in does nothing whatsoever to alter the meaning of the photograph. The hand is still being bandaged.
The main question is and remains, though: can photography, a medium that used to be hailed for its capacity to represent reality, still fulfill that notion in the digital age? This year, Photoshop (my favorite addiction of all) turned 20 years old. I myself have been amazed as to what all I can repair AFTER the photograph has been taken. I have found, though, that in a perfect scenario it will do no more than make an already good photo great – something I would have done in a darkroom pre-digital.
To the amateur, Photoshop and its many cousins (Aperture, Lightroom etc.) is the cure-all. In the beginning, I would routinely fix up less-than-perfect photos, knowing that the uninitiated would never know the difference. I very soon would discover, though, that what was not in the photograph would not be magically present with digital manipulation, and that a bad photo is still a bad photo, even though it may have been photoshopped. The mere notion that a bad picture can be “saved” this way to me now sounds so totally ridiculous and amateurish, I’m embarrassed to even admit I used to think that way. I also can only repeat time after time that once you find yourself bending over backwards when post-processing an image, chances are it’s probably not worth it. And in that sense, David Hurn’s concerns that “digital” would take the challenge out of photography that had made photography great – that had actually made photographers such as Lee Friedlander or Garry Winogrand great – were in retrospect without foundation.
Photoshop and programs like it can likewise not substitute for certain analog processes. They can mimic, but they will only come this close, and never completely reach it. Polaroid transfers are one such example. Another example is digital black & white. Great photos are made in the darkroom (Ansel Adams reportedly spent more time there than actually photographing to perfect his most memorable works). That is no different in the digital age. For example, I would have NEVER thought that outstanding digital black & white would be THIS hard, until I tried it. I have explored EVERY technique I could get my hands on, and when comparing it to my early pioneer heroes, just had to thrust my hands in the air in frustration when I realized that the contrasts, the mood, that eye-popping “something” just wasn’t there. I’ve finally come pretty close with Nik’s Silver Efex Pro, but even that is not the cure-all some hail it to be and a little clumsy and time-consuming to boot.
Anyway. Back to our question at hand. I think it’s actually a little easier than one might think. If the representation of reality is our bar, the line in the sand that we draw, I propose that a photograph should live up to the following very short list of standards:
- Does the photograph faithfully represent the scene it depicts by all accounts?
- If altering is necessary according to the estimation of the photographer (the picture is, for example, crooked or contains distracting elements), would the result have been achievable in the analog darkroom?
- Does the altered result still faithfully represent the original scene as stated in #1?
If the answer to all of these is “yes”, the line in the sand that David Walker questioned, would no longer be arbitrary, but very clearly defined. Stepan Rudik would probably be able to keep his prize. And everything else is a digital composite, digital art, and should be disclosed as such. There is a space for this kind of stuff. As for the fake “wild” wolf, even Photoshop couldn’t fix that anyway.
He was reportedly told they would stay on the wall. (Good for you, guys!)