Has the Invention of Digital Photography Destroyed the Truth Telling Capacity of Photographs?
Part of an MA research in Arts and Visual Culture, Westminster University, London
Digital and online media are dominated by the moving and still image. Since the emergence of the internet and later social platforms, rapid consumption of data and the main forms of expression were grounded in the use of the image, as it transcends national and linguistic barriers. Platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, all built around the image, have proved to be among the most popular, with the digital photographic image being the leading form and the most circulated type of digital cultural production. With smart phones at hand, armed with multiple lenses, readily available digital tools, and user-friendly interfaces of social platforms that allow for fast production and handling of images, their widespread was guaranteed, and in the process the criteria for what makes up digital photographs and their authenticity further questioned.
The digitalization of the photographic image has software at its core, in that it allows for generation, access, manipulation and production, with interface as a gateway to the invisible set of numbers that make up the digital image. Its removal from the perceivable in its fabrication, stirred controversy in regard to its value and validity when compared to classical photographic techniques and ways of presentation. The following essay thus tries to dissect the truth telling capacity of digital photographs. It examines first the digitalization of the photograph, how it is generated, manipulated, and understood. Yet through a step back, taking a broader look on photography, both classical and digital, the essay argues for an equal illusory quality of the medium that affects both, and suspends their truth capacity.
Digitalization of the photograph
In the conception of the photograph, the transition into the digital did not really change its original generation. All photographic images, digital or not, start first with the capture of a moment through the inscription of light. In classical photography or chemical-based photography, light captured is imprinted on film, and from there developed into the image. The digitalization of the act refers to the transformation of this two-step process. In digital photography the light from the picture captured is translated into data, forming a digital file of binary code, and from which the image can be visualised in multiple forms. In essence the process remains similar, however, the transformation of the image into a digital file divides the two-step process, rendering them separate. A digital image presented can be rendered from a digital file that can have or not have a photographic image as a source. And within this spectrum, the digitalization of the act thus allows for the possibility of image manipulation and the transformation of the translated digital file of photographic data — “The Digital Image” — through multiple steps of software prior to its rendering as an output (Osborne, 2010).
A defining characteristic of digital photography then is this apparent fluidity and the capacity to be manipulated. Allowing for a broader vocabulary of expression that may or may not be based on the initial captured moment, and from which results can then be exported into different formats, from the projected screen to the printed paper. In her contribution to the online blog Still Searching, founded by the swiss institution for the presentation and discussion of photography and visual culture, Fotomuseum Winterthur, curator Melanie Josefine Buhler (2015a) explains digital photographs as follows: “an amalgam of light that has become data, data that has been layered with code, code that has been transformed by software, an image that has been visualized and formatted on (touch) screens and that may or may not be printed on any number of physical materials.”.
Preserving Indexicality
A captured moment conveys photographic indexicality, a documentation of both the intent and depicted events or objects at that moment of time, and from which its truth capacity can be measured. Breaking down the perceived flow of process from capture to production, through the change of form from light on a sensor to data files of binary code and then transformed through post-production processes and interfaces, removes the moment from its original context and therefore provokes scepticism about the meaning and authenticity of the digital image.
Software plays an integral role to this anxiety. The translation of photographic images into code and in extension its handling is achieved and governed by ever evolving technological capabilities and tools. Tools that can also add expanding properties to the data being handled and changed. Properties of an image are not part of the actual translated code but are rather part of what a selected computer program enables through its interface. Choosing different software allows or limits change. The artificial-intelligence backed enhancing software of recent iPhones are miles ahead of what early digital cameras can achieve — it is through software that media can actually become digital. The vital centrality of software and added parameters to the process doubts the authority of the resulting image (Manovich, 2013), is the end result a genuine depiction of the captured moment or in fact the capabilities of software used?
Another aspect of software is the fact that they are produced by institutions and development companies, making software change and development deeply social, and part of a bigger economic and political power. Developments are continuous, with one of the main goals being to stay competitive within the software industry, and keep users engaged. The emergence of particular techniques consequently can be traced back to economic decisions and so inadvertently become tropes in produced digital images. “Ready-made affects” in social platforms is a prime example. Users becoming both producers and consumers of the image on these platforms forced for the need of gaining visual capital through the image being shared and spread. This urged the development of techniques that achieve faster creation and fashionable looks for a more impactful impression within the exponential scale of production (Bühler, 2015b).
The actual captured moment made obscure through the medium, and transformation to an unperceivable format unless armed with such tools to decode it, nevertheless in principle, did not alter the original indexicality of the captured image, and most importantly its causal aspect. Looking back at classical photography, the same transition between capture and production, from a negative to development, can hold a capacity for manipulation, authenticity of both can thus be questioned similarly since the digital process had little impact on the intent. It is only the unperceivable nature, the advanced quality of manipulation of digital photography that has little visual trace, and agency of software used, that generates this extra fear about the loss of real present in both formats (Osborne, 2010). In fact, the question can now shift to a manipulation that can happen as early as the time of capture, since photographs are truly a witness of an earlier human choice as mentioned.
What is “Real”?
The real power of photographs comes from its indexicality, being messages about events or objects recorded and through which these same captured events or objects their messages explained, while their decoding is subject to the audience and their prior knowledge and understanding of depicted elements. The true content of the photograph is thus this interplay between intent, capture of moment, and collective understanding (Berger, 2014), with this moment taken from the continuum as a relation between the depicted visible and the contextually framed invisible. Documentary photography, a style of classical photography that was used to provide a straightforward, and accurate representation of people, places, objects and events, came to prominence early and mid-twentieth century as an important tool in reportage. Documenting all kinds of aspects, from hidden and unseen places to social injustices, it conveyed a power in bearing a “real” witness to world events. Yet, their falloff due to declining interest in published photography, pushed them into museums (Tate, n.d.). Under new reflection through the recontextualising of the photographs within a new setting — gallery space/neutral space, the intent of the photographer and presented images were questioned against socio-political settings, from which their “accurate” representations were influenced. The choice in framing a captured moment in certain light is directed by the collective norm and in return inherits invisible messages that play on targeted audience. “Every photograph is in fact a means of testing, confirming and constructing a total view of reality. Hence the crucial role of photography in ideological struggle. Hence the necessity of our understanding a weapon which we can use, and which can be used against us.” states the influential British critic John Berger (2014, p. 227).
The conceptual framing (indexicality) of digital photographs can stretch to include the digital nature of the process and its several steps, changing the indexical value from referring to only the event and the physical bound moment to the digital moment; that is the post-processing steps through software, made possible through interface, and production. The digital moment still derived from the initial moment, maintains its photographic truth. Furthermore, the image moving to an online context further contextualise this digital indexicality within the digital cultural cannon and situates images into a larger framework of a collective meaning (Bors, 2015). Whether a shared platform or theme, the image is read through both the collective and the added meaning of its digital context, with its meaning built upon each time it is spread and readapted (re-contextualised).
The similar attitudes between both mediums in how meaning is constructed and consumed begins to untangle the anxiety attached to digital photography. The fear of losing the “real” from digital photography is thus misdirected at its capacity for alteration and the influence of software included. Still is there an absolute “real” to begin with? As illustrated, photographs were never about a complete real, rather their photographic truth was derived from a built-up meaning that involved the depiction of the photographer’s perception, choice and expression in time. They produce an illusory capacity between the visible depicted and the invisible inherited.
The fear of loss of the real is rather a signifier of a different problem, the loss of value through the abstraction of social relations this exaggerated manipulation and recontextualising can give way to. With no strong visible indicator of the referential value of the image, it mirrors the structure of a commodity, in which there is no clear relation between use-value and exchange value (Osborne, 2010). In a capitalist structure this depicted fantasy either adds extraordinarily little or can be misused against it. However, the digital images finding new grounds in online contexts generated new value for them. Coming back to the notions of “ready-made affects”, the visual capital generated from the impactful nature and spread of images offered an opportunity to be harnessed and capitalised off. Ironically, it is their manipulated form through the developed software that allowed for this spread to be achieved and value generated. Digital photography and the digital image take on a new form. Thus, the relation to the index become paradoxical, where images are consumed for what they represent and their apparent authenticity to what they depict, while achieving its impact, and in tow value, through stepping away from their photographic truth (steering further away from the moment of conception) (Bühler, 2015b).
“Details” by Canadian artist Dominique Blain demonstrates this play on the illusory power of photographs, and the pseudo build-up of a “real” in what is depicted, to only benefit the dominating power.
Through her art, Dominique Blain has always focused on the tense relations between the socio-political cultural framework and the production and the re-production of the image (Grande, 1992). In “Details”- 1992 — Blain uses 26 sepia-toned printed framed photographs. The collective images are displayed twice back-to-back, yet with the focus shifted from one iteration to the other. On the first instance, the images are cropped to small cigarette size snapshots focusing on different people of colour. Deprived from context, the images showcase a close up of their faces, and the overall collective gives off a neutral feel of a simple display of different past cultures. Switching on to the other side, the cropped frame backs away from the subjects’ faces and the overall context is revealed. The people of colour are displayed as serving troupes to white western figures dressed in colonial attire. The images are documentation of colonial conquests around the globe, showing western sovereignty and the use of locals as servants.
Dominique Blain examines the power of the image frame and its effect on inherited meanings and messages. The first batch keeps the emphasis on the dominated subject yet giving them full focus and a chance to be seen and understood. Who are the people presented? What are their stories and cultures? What do their attire signify? They are seen free from the shackles of the western gaze. Coming in the second batch, the message is shifted away, and the people of colour only serve as props in the western narrative. The framing and reframing of the images presented manipulated the inherited messages of the photos through a play on the socio-political capacity of the presented images. The process unravels an impact that has been diluted due to their repeated use by dominant cultures and political forces. The constructed narratives of the artwork affirm the illusory character of photography, digital or not.
Final Thoughts
On the cover of fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar 2015 March issue, Rihanna reclines gracefully in a great white shark’s opened jaw as it emerges from the waters. The jarring cover image, photographed by Norman Jean Roy, was an homage to Steven Spielberg’s famous shot from the 70s on set of his film Jaws, and was arranged to coincide with its 40th anniversary. The image was also meant as a representation of the recent successes the pop diva was having within the industry (Ottenberg, 2015). The orchestrated fantasy image is life-like, with little to say it is not real and if it was not for its absurdity and the viewers believe that it is made up and cannot be true. The meticulously juxtaposed image of Rihanna onto the seemingly digitally generated shark creates a narrative between the juxtaposition of beauty and danger, the possible and impossible, signifying her resilience. It is a fitting image for the digital age, as its striking quality is quick to grab widespread attention.
What truth capacity does this photographic digital image holds? Is it an image confirming the star swimming with sharks, is it an homage to Jaws and the referenced film, or maybe about the photographer and his artistic style and vision? Maybe it is about the fashion she is wearing, or about the high-quality production of the image and the status of the magazine. Could it be a documentation of the technological advancements and the digital age that allowed for such a seamless result and spread of the image. It is all of the above and none of the above, a thoroughly fantasised image that signifies a moment in time, capturing the capitalist social structure that governs industries, and in return the economic decisions taken by the magazine to capitalise on the moment’s pop culture, increasing viewership and reach. This fantasy is made possible through the technological advancements available for photo-manipulation, production and distribution.
Photography has always been the result of hybrid technologies, while analogue methods of chemical based photography maintain a comprehensible representation of the image in imprinting light, storing (negative) and presenting it (printing), each production still inherits qualities and properties of the development process and presentation mediums. Images can be adjusted, cut, merged, juxtaposed, framed and reframed, and can then be printed on different paper, colour and in different size formats to name a few processes. Each print is an iteration of the captured moment.
With the development of technology and the shift of the photographic process to digital media, the translation of the process into binary code, allowed for an expansive layer of fluidity in both handling and presentation, through software and interface, to be added. Each presented iteration is again one iteration of the captured image, as the case with the former — ‘event of its visualization is an original event’ (Groys, 2008, p. 90). Still in both, the capacity for the actual captured “real” is obscured behind a hybrid process that not only includes the actual steps of the process, but most importantly the human factor represented in the socio-political and cultural moment in time that influenced the intent of capture in the first place and constructed the narrative — index — for the perceived understanding of the viewer (discussed notions can also apply to automated photography, as the software controlling the process is still developed under economic and political circumstances). As with paintings, photography is hence a self-conscious illusion in both conception and consumption and should be approached in that sense before all else. To answer the presented question, “has the invention of digital photography destroyed the truth telling capacity of photographs?” — No, yet it was always questionable to begin with.
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