So what is the relationship between photographs and reality?
I have found Errol Morris’s book totally fascinating. Reading the first chapter on Roger Fenton’s Valley of the Shadow of Death photographs, I wrote in my notes “Totally fascinating that we can have these two photographic images and so many different and contradictory opinions on their meanings.” We tend to view photographs as reflecting reality and providing evidence, much more so than other media. We tend to accept that prose or illustration and paintings are an interpretation filtered through the author or artist. I would also argue that photography is distinct from moving images in this way. Maybe the visual language of cinema--camera movement, the variation of shots, editing, non-diegetic music--all remind us that we’re watching something that has been interpreted and filtered through creators. Photographs, however, present us with this nice little slice of time. In On Photography, Susan Sontag wrote, “An event known through photographs certainly becomes more real than it would have been if one never had seen the photographs” (p.20).
I remember the Abu Ghraib photos and ensuing scandal well. I remember seeing the “hooded man” photo, but not the smiling photo of Sabrina Harmon (the news I remember focused much more on Lynndie England). While the release of these photos brought to light this horrific abuse and torture undertaken by the U.S. military, the photos also brought the focus on the low-ranking soldiers who appeared in the images. I can remember at the time there being a lot of criticism in the focus on court martialing the individual soldiers, but little (or no) effort made to address the problems at higher levels. As Morrill notes, the “enhanced interrogation techniques” were approved by the highest levels of the U.S. military and government. Logically, these photos are just snapshots, just pieces of a much larger picture. But, because these photographs existed, this was the evidence that we had, which meant that the military could focus on a few individual soldiers, rather than a much larger issue.
