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narrative photography

the truth and nothing but

By | photography

So Doisneau used family members as actors in his photographs. “The kiss” is certainly no spontaneous action observed by a quickly reacting photographer, it was planned and staged! And yes, the gentleman standing on the running board of a late night London cab doesn’t only resemble Bill Brandt, it’s his brother. Even Capa’s falling soldier in Spain acted out his “dying”, as is proven by several takes of this “shot” with the same background (the original negatives surfaced not long ago in a trunk on somebody’s attic!). And I could go on… Is this “a sin against the principles, even the true nature of photography” as I hear some people arguing, even those who have no problem with Photoshop and the likes being applied with far less grace and taste…

A description is always true to itself, why are we so harsh on photographs that betray our preconception that a photograph, especially a classic one, should be representative, truthful and unmanipulated. Maybe because we want a photograph  to fulfill the role we demand from it that it should have a narrative function. We want dearly to read a so-called meaning into it, in fact a “story” to comfort us. But is there life beyond the frame? Sure, but we sometimes make it up in our craving for explanations, if not easy solutions. We have to accept some photographs as icons, they do exist on their own, creating their own symbolic “truth” irrespective of context. What you get is not necessarily what you (hope to) see.

narrative photography

By | photography

“Narrative” implies the passing of time, because change, a certain development, is taking place. Narrative photography would therefore look something like a photo novel (phantasy) or at least a flashburst sequence of a few seconds, capturing a movement (reality). You can guess “what is happening” in a photograph, but you can never be really sure, things may look like they do for that one single moment only  (and never before or after).  The suggestion may be a perfect lie, if we consider reality to be the truth.