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Post thesis, Brad fills his extra time contemplating trends on Photoshop Disaster discussion board. Leading to come interesting conclusions including this comment:  Read More » Bookmark/Search this post wi…

Believability is key to that, though in the case of black and white, it might stem from the way monochrome has been culturally produced as authentic by the history of documentary photography rather than any inherent perceptual qualities to this style.

The passion evident in debates about Photoshop and truth show that no matter how hard people try to find it, there is no self-evident, objective standard to make clear and unproblematic judgments about what is legitimate and what isn’t. If there were, why would everybody be arguing so? Constantly searching for the mythical foundations of truth to end these debates only papers over a proper understanding of photography as a technology that creates worlds as much as it reveals them.

None of this is to suggest that veracity gets chucked out the window, and that photographers can just do what they like and make things up. Far from it. But this debate reinforces my view that we have to move away from judging photographs on what they are, to thinking about what they do. Photojournalism in particular has to come to terms with its inherent constructed-ness and move on to how it uses this to tell stories, highlight issues, and produce evidence.

As for these particular images, the photoshopping – in my opinion, is just plain bad. He should not have been disqualified as there are not really any factual alterations – such as the kind often employed in advertising and in fashion – just some over saturation and contrast to the point where we doubt the scene was as it appears in the photograph. Contrast and Saturation could have been added with more restraint and the photographs would still have had the desired aesthetic. Think of it like a legal case. Can you say, beyond reasonable doubt, that the scene is an accurate representation of what occurred. If looking at these photographs make you think ‘photoshop’ and then the comparison with an unretouched file confirms it, then you have placed a barrier between the viewer and the content.

One reason why this is such a touchy subject in documentary and photojournalism is precisely because of what has happened with fashion and advertising. Seeing is still believing, and people like to choose when they can be lied to. People are happy to believe that that model has flawless skin and a healthy glow but don’t want to believe that the broken concrete slabs (as in one of Christensen’s images) are radiating a steely blue light. If photojournalism and documentary are to retain the respect of people who look at photographs, then manipulations should show some restraint. Sure, the light might well have given that concrete a tint of blue, but how many (except under hallcinatory conditions) have witnessed concrete glowing that particular hue? Does that not therefore cast the veracity of the image in doubt? And for a profession that holds facts in such high regard, with a public that does not like being fooled in this particular arena, is that not a problematic situation?

This may or may not be the tip of the iceberg — but what interests me most is how some images are judged as ‘suspicious’ and against what standard? Christensen, who made his RAW files public for all too see, openly acknowledges that he gave his pictures “full throttle” in Photoshop. We may judge that to be inappropriate for reportage. But — and its a big but — if we do think his actions wrong, how we can justify the full throttle of desaturation (turning a colour file into black and white), as permitted by the Danish competition rules?

What this demonstrates is that the grounds for judging the legitimacy of documentary photographs come, not from external or objective standards, but from accepted practice within the history of photojournalism. And in this history — as Martin Parr has recently noted (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/apr/15/madonna-photo-malawi-adoption) — black and white has been the ‘gold’ standard.

There may be no problem with that accepted practice, but it can’t be justified — as too often is the case in this debate — in terms of realism, veracity, accuracy, objectivity and truth.