Week Two: The Index the Icon Authenticity

A quick search online reveals many fake images and I feel that most of them work because people believe that it could be true. I see that this image is pertinent to photographic practice on several levels. Practitioners currently working on projects, as the photographer may have been here. The practitioner may have many accounts of children sleeping at the graves so staged the event for genuine reason. This is something that I feel we all have to be aware of when introducing the staging of an image as it could be seen as fake.

As practitioners, we have to be aware of our own influence upon our work. As Barthes states ‘Now once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of “posing”‘ (Barthes, 2000 pg 10) So just placing a camera in a public place there is always a reaction from the people, as Alexy Titarenko explains ” Your presence actually changes the situation. The situation is becoming not the same. So your manipulating the situation , so the image is therefore not true”. (Alexy Titarenko, 2020 Youtube)

On a technical level there are many reasons why the image is fake. The human eye has a larger dynamic range than any camera in the current consumer / pro market place so exposure stacking is a process that can replicate what we see. This process is an intervention which is a manipulation of the image. The other technique focus stacking replicates the eye but is a manipulation. Where do you draw the line?

My current practice lends itself to manipulation, if not requires it, and therefore there is no question of authenticity in the images I produce. Fig 2 the lone tree is multiple exposures constructed within photoshop. The location and the tree are real. Seeing all the tree at once from all angles so does this represent or is it a trace?

Through the surface of authenticity, we start to look at the semiotics. I have not looked at this aspect before, however, I feel that it is important to read images with them. The Iconic, The indexical and symbolic. With the abstract image, I feel the only aspect that can come into this level of the reading is symbolic, which would have to arrive through context.

Bibliography

BARTHES, Roland. 2000. Camera Lucida. London: Vintage.

References

Fig 1 – https://www.boredpanda.com/fake-news-photos-viral-photoshop/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

Fig 2 – Roydon Woodford