I'd like to explore this question a bit more at some point. I **agree** that film/photography are the "least indisputable" witness of an act, but only because all other witnesses are purely subjective. At least an unmanipulated photo tells the "truth" of that nano-second of act. But a photo creates a record of a particular act that is removed from its larger context. And film can nestle this microsecond of act within a larger context that is fully edited by a subjective filmmaker. In other words, the larger context is required to tell us the fuller truth, but without that larger context, how "indisputable" are film or photographs, really?
What is "true" about this picture? Someone in a hoodie spray-painting a few letters on a wall that may or may not result in an obscene word. Everything else about this image relies on the caption. The caption provides the context. Nothing about the context is known aside from that caption, which we assume is accurate, but maybe not? Or, perhaps it's accurate, but it doesn't really get at the full context (i.e., exactly why is this person performing this act within the protest? It's a black lives matter protest, the protester is white; is s/he/they a counter-protester?)
In the end, how "truthful" is any photograph? John Berger called photographs a "quotation from appearances". Within the quotes is what the photographer has captured; what you see within the quotes is accurate (assuming no image manipulation), but is that where the full truth of the image resides, within the quotes? What about the seconds and minutes prior and after this photo was taken? What in the end is this photo actually depicting?
This may sound strange coming from me, but I think photography and filmmaking have the potential of being the least truthful of all acts of witnessing. The end results rely completely on the subjective editing/positioning of the photographer/filmmaker. Photographs may not lie, but photographers and filmmakers certainly can. Better put, they may not consciously lie, but they are fully reliant on their own biases to produce their work. Biases they may have no awareness of and that may lead to inaccurate or at least incomplete depictions of the events
Oops...I may have ranted too long. And in the end, you're probably right, this is the best we have.
I like this argument- perhaps it’s more relevant than mine in fact. Which isn’t a sentiment that contradicts your thought on this - though maybe mine.
Photographs, unless they’re staged portraits - are static and dynamic. Just as you read the next work in this sentence the last word is already in the past.
I think we race - on so many levels - in so many directions at once from any point of experience or existence that the microsecond of illumination registered in our brains cannot be fully grasped.
But when we revisit the fact of it, it can both stand and expand - perhaps - into a review, albeit perhaps a blurred vision - into deeper levels /dimensions of understanding.
"Just as you read the next work in this sentence the last word is already in the past." True enough, and spot on. And yes, we "race on." Photographs ask us to stop and consider, but most of us race on and on, to the next and the next.
Nothing has the impact of film, of a photograph, the primary, least indisputable witness to an event.
Not a neurologist but must believe the visual goes directly into the brain
Propagandists and bad actors know this, and have the tools to pervert images (in a literal sense). We are victims of our own technology.
I'd like to explore this question a bit more at some point. I **agree** that film/photography are the "least indisputable" witness of an act, but only because all other witnesses are purely subjective. At least an unmanipulated photo tells the "truth" of that nano-second of act. But a photo creates a record of a particular act that is removed from its larger context. And film can nestle this microsecond of act within a larger context that is fully edited by a subjective filmmaker. In other words, the larger context is required to tell us the fuller truth, but without that larger context, how "indisputable" are film or photographs, really?
What is "true" about this picture? Someone in a hoodie spray-painting a few letters on a wall that may or may not result in an obscene word. Everything else about this image relies on the caption. The caption provides the context. Nothing about the context is known aside from that caption, which we assume is accurate, but maybe not? Or, perhaps it's accurate, but it doesn't really get at the full context (i.e., exactly why is this person performing this act within the protest? It's a black lives matter protest, the protester is white; is s/he/they a counter-protester?)
In the end, how "truthful" is any photograph? John Berger called photographs a "quotation from appearances". Within the quotes is what the photographer has captured; what you see within the quotes is accurate (assuming no image manipulation), but is that where the full truth of the image resides, within the quotes? What about the seconds and minutes prior and after this photo was taken? What in the end is this photo actually depicting?
This may sound strange coming from me, but I think photography and filmmaking have the potential of being the least truthful of all acts of witnessing. The end results rely completely on the subjective editing/positioning of the photographer/filmmaker. Photographs may not lie, but photographers and filmmakers certainly can. Better put, they may not consciously lie, but they are fully reliant on their own biases to produce their work. Biases they may have no awareness of and that may lead to inaccurate or at least incomplete depictions of the events
Oops...I may have ranted too long. And in the end, you're probably right, this is the best we have.
I like this argument- perhaps it’s more relevant than mine in fact. Which isn’t a sentiment that contradicts your thought on this - though maybe mine.
Photographs, unless they’re staged portraits - are static and dynamic. Just as you read the next work in this sentence the last word is already in the past.
I think we race - on so many levels - in so many directions at once from any point of experience or existence that the microsecond of illumination registered in our brains cannot be fully grasped.
But when we revisit the fact of it, it can both stand and expand - perhaps - into a review, albeit perhaps a blurred vision - into deeper levels /dimensions of understanding.
"Just as you read the next work in this sentence the last word is already in the past." True enough, and spot on. And yes, we "race on." Photographs ask us to stop and consider, but most of us race on and on, to the next and the next.