Photography is Reality: Essay One

I often enjoy reading Christian Patterson’s blog. Recently a discussion of truth and reality in relation to the photograph has captured my interest.

Patterson remarks,

“In the most literal sense, no photograph is an absolute truth. It is not reality. No photograph has ever truly been real, or ever will be. The process of photography invariably and unavoidably involves some degree of alteration and interpretation.”

I couldn’t disagree more, maybe. Mostly I think it is the confusion and conflation of terms like reality and truth that leaves me somewhat uncertain as to whether or not I can say I disagree with Patterson. I suspect that I do, but maybe only partially. I would like to make the assertion that the photograph IS a reality and also that the photograph is a TRUTH.

A photograph is quite obviously a representation as well as a physical object. I doubt that Patterson would deny that a photograph as a spattering of ink or chemical on a physical object called paper or even on a computer screen is not real. It’s concrete, like a chair, like a tree. However this level of reality (objective reality free of human perspective) is largely uninteresting to humans.

So I have to assume that he is speaking about photography as a representation. In that sense, I may also agree. No single representation of reality captures “objective” reality. Theodor Adorno in his work Negative Dialectics created perhaps the most comprehensive argument for the case that no single perception of external reality can capture the whole. Our understanding of the world around us is always imperfect.

But we have a problem here. Photographs are to a degree a kind of perception, not too dissimilar to our eyes, ears, taste, or smell. None of those instruments of perception can provide us with an accurate depiction of “objective” reality either. But is that even important? I would like to argue that it is not at all important. Nor does it negate the role photography as reality.

Each Halloween, I find myself watching T.V. specials designed to explain the Salem Witch Trials. Did they see spirits? Or were they all just poisoned by bad bread? To a large extent these shows are ridiculous. Knowing whether or not spirits or bad bread “caused” the visions brings us NO CLOSER to understanding the social, political or theological events that followed at Salem. Knowing the “objective” reality brings us no closer to explaining why twenty people died there.

Instead we are better suited looking at the Social Reality. Social reality is the web of meaning and truth that we spin as a society and that structures our perception and understanding of the world around us. (Check out Berger & Luckman’s Sociology of Knowledge for a more complete argument here). For example teen pregnancy is now considered to be a social problem that demands the expenditure of money and human resources to “cure”. Yet teen pregnancy was the order of the day little more than two generations ago. The reality of teen pregnancy is socially defined and now as in the past we can encounter many people who vehemently defend the order of the day as the real answer or the enlightened perspective.

The symbolic interactionist W.I. Thompson argues that, “What is defined or perceived by people as real is real in its consequences” (Thomas and Thomas, 1928, p. 572). To a large degree whether or not photography can capture reality (that is objective reality) brings us no closer to understanding photography or its place in the world. If I believe for example that terror is a real and eminent threat, I react in a very different way than if I have no knowledge of terrorism… no images to race my heart or tense my shoulders.

If we are talking about the social reality, that is the reality of narratives and stories that populate and explain our world, that help us understand what is out there, how it’s organized and where we fit in it… well the photo is integral to that reality. In fact the photo is reality. And the only reason I can find to debate the “objectivity” of the photo is to engage in the same act as those shows on the Salem Witch trials that seek not to understand the event, but to establish that these days we’re “smarter” than all that and won’t be fooled by “visions of demons”.

The fact remains we are still fooled by images everyday. In the next essay, I will continue this line of photography as reality by talking about photographs as experiences and exploring the role I argue that they play in replacing direct experience.