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“PHOTOGRAPHY FROM NOW ON”
by Pedro Meyer
 

part 1 | part 2

I've been considered to be a fairly good printer of my own work, so it was with great interest when I unpacked a recent exhibition of my images that had just returned from a two year tour. I was eager to compare a particularly difficult to print image done on a silver based emulsion photographic paper and one that I had recently produced with the aid of the computer and new digital technologies. A process that allows me to have absolute control over each single grain in the image, something unthinkable within the traditional chemical process. The outcome was so astounding when I compared the two, that I felt embarrassed with the terrible silver print I had produced earlier on and allowed to travel. In working with the tools I now have at my disposal, I'm able to reproduce what earlier had always eluded me. The wealth of a tonal range and the possibility to adjust every last detail to my own liking without making any concessions is something that does not cease to amaze me, especially when I compare the output.  This was the first time that I had seen the same image produced in their two different technological moments. It was like comparing an old 78 rpm record to a new digital stereo CD recording.

I haven't used a dark room for the last two years, given that I'm only printing with a dye sublimation process or with an ink jet printer, (when I print with the ink jet  unit, no longer do I use photographic paper, instead I use the traditional artist's paper such as the French Arches) the quality of the prints is so much richer than anything that I have ever done before, that I find it unthinkable to ever return to the darkroom.  I'm one of those who used to work in the dark room enjoying the process very much, so I imagine how ecstatic anyone who didn't like working in the darkroom might  be.

This issue of digital image making brings to a head, among many other topics, one that is particularly interesting to almost everyone in the world of culture, namely that of representing “reality." It is has become increasingly clear that we can now alter an image at will, by including or excluding whatever meets our fancy, both before or after having made the picture. The interesting situation that emerges from all of this, is that documentary photography which all along was considered such a bastion of “integrity” when it came to representation, given that there was a negative as proof of something, is now an issue which is fading  from the scene very fast. I for one, never thought that photography should have been burdened with this aura of being a reliable representation of reality, especially since it never was true. All too many photographers have used this fragile misrepresentation to fool the public into believing that their documentary images were that: a document,  when in fact they were not.

A case in point is the well
NEWSWEEK, 4 de enero de 1993
known image, “The Kiss,"  by the French photographer Robert Doisneau. It turns out that Doisneau, in order to defend himself from a lawsuit brought forth by the supposedly featured pair, is now alleging that the kissing couple presented to us all along as a prime example of the  “decisive moment” is not that at all, but instead, a couple of actors (and he has the negatives to prove it, so he stated, according to a Newsweek magazine). I've always liked that image immensely, I even own a print (given to me as loving gift)  which hangs on the wall of our living room, but when I view it today it saddens me that the photographer was less than forthright  as he led us believe that the image was a spontaneous moment of love. The information this image delivers is now altered by our knowledge that the moment is fabricated, gone is the idea of real love between those two people, we are now aware that this was only make believe love, as actors do.  We were induced to accept that this was a document witnessing love, when all along it wasn't. All of us who own a print, might be inclined to sue him, for destroying the myth of  a gesture of genuine love; then we can also be thankful for making us aware of how gullible we had become with regard to the documentary tradition.

The Doisneau affair is very pertinent, as we address the digital revolution in photography and the world of culture at large, it will inevitably bring about the unmasking of all those images that have been presented as “genuine documents” when indeed they weren't. As our knowledge of digital image making evolves, so will the awareness of how images can be fabricated with great ease, they always have been, only now it's no longer solely the domain of what happens in front of the lens, it can also be accomplished, as never before, after the image has been taken. A more challenging public will be less inclined to view pictures with the innocence of days past, thus deceivers such as Doisneau, won't be able to get away with their illusion so easily. The digital revolution will usher forward a whole new gamut of ethical values that need to be adhered to. This doesn't  imply that there isn't ample room for fabricated images, quite the contrary, such pictures will come into existence more and more, many of them will be very powerful in their editorial comment, much as the written word is today. We only have to make it clear to everyone concerned, when a photograph is a document and when it's not. I believe we are in for an unpleasant surprise as to the level of present day documentary work that has been constructed, so as vigilance increases due to the potential for mischief  by digital means, we will find ourselves scrutinizing as never before, everything we get to see. This enlarged awareness will gradually bring to the surface all those deceptive practices, which to our dismay, will reveal that they are not so unusual. So in a roundabout way, digital image making will also help to clean up our act  within traditional photography.

As I look forward to the new year about to begin, I have to review what has elapsed over these last few years besieged with upheaval; a startling period of confrontations with new ways of doing things, changing values, concepts rethought, recast perceptions, and ideas torn asunder. Entropy at it's finest. Which leads me to a recent question posed in San Francisco a few weeks ago, by the distinguished English scientist Stephen Hawking: Why can we remember the past, yet not the future?

It was Giotto who seven hundred years ago, redefined the artist's framework of time, he single-handedly created a new way to envision and organize space, he also isolated for art the frame of stopped time, a precursor to the decisive moment so prevalent in modern photography. We are at the threshold where photography could move beyond the “decisive moment” anchored in Giottos time towards the“decisive pixel” of our time, maybe it's right that we now move towards the future and bring Hawking's question to bear, and that we find a way to remember the future and depict it through digital photography, and by so doing, find a new passage to be marked by the clock and odometer of history.

© Pedro Meyer, 1993
pedro@zonezero.com
part 1 | part 2