Unable to resist the issue of ‘truth in the telling’, I fell into Errol Morris’ writings on the NYT blog space. Amazing musings, on everything from re-enactments in doccy films to the ‘veracity’ of Fenton’s Crimean War images of the Valley iof the shadow of Death.
One of my favourite subjects – the ‘truth’ of photographs. As a photojournalist (albeit partially lapsed) and documentary photographer, I am a little obsessed with just how much, or which part of, the truth an image represents.
I long ago lost a naive belief in objectivity and the truth of journalism. But I do have an intuitive sense that the more open the medium is about his/her subjectivity; the closer we can come to representing fragments of ‘the truth’.
Far from straying from factual representation, I think that being transparent in the way one works and presents photography can help us and the viewer get closer to the truth of what actually happened around the photograph.
Ye Gods, see what a day perusing Errol Morris can do to you.
This is a long discussion, I have to dasjh, but will update.
I would post some images of veracity and otherwise, but we were burgled and lost all computers and back-up data…. never mind, it will serve to remind me to shoot film.