A lot of Goldberg’s work can be found on the Magnum website, while a video version of his seminal Raised by Wolves can be found on his personal website. Continue reading “Jim Goldberg”
Author: carlwhetham
Susan Meiselas, Carnival Strippers
This is another book publication, but one that juxtaposes outsider images with insider text or verbal testimony. This project helped Meiselas gain entry into Magnum, where the photographs are also available for view. Many of the images are reminiscent of cattle markets. Continue reading “Susan Meiselas, Carnival Strippers”
Danny Lyon
Lyon’s seminal work of journalism is The Bikeriders from 1968. In it he explores the motorcycle gang that he was actually a member of, and displays his raw monochrome images alongside interview extracts. Continue reading “Danny Lyon”
Gay Block, How do you like my new necklace?
An exploration of loss and artefacts which have a past and significance in the biography of the artist. Continue reading “Gay Block, How do you like my new necklace?”
Update – Steve McCurry scandal
When I first got wind of this story through Duckrabbit, my interest was piqued since I wrote a critical analysis of McCurry’s work for my last level.
It seems that a viewer noticed some Photoshopping in a McCurry image from Cuba on display in a Turin gallery and posted his observations on Facebook:
Image manipulation
As a result of what he terms the ‘virus of manipulation’, Andy Grundberg (1990) laments that even some of photography’s icons have been subjected to alteration, and cites the example of a Eugene Smith image of Albert Schweitzer that was later revealed to be a composite of two negatives (the original images not available since Smith developed all his prints in his own laboratory before submitting them to Time): Continue reading “Image manipulation”
Deliberate staging
Reading an article on David Campbell’s website, I came across a link to an article on Duckrabbit which was a discussion of fakery in image making. The photograph below won the prestigious Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 award, but was quickly stripped of the award and the photographer banned for life from entering the competition – because it was suspected (never 100% proved) that the wolf was a tamed one:
Selecting the images to fit the political agenda
“In theory, photographs are used to back up or to prove contentions made in the article. They are the visual evidence, the facts of the matter. In actuality they needn’t perform that role. They only need to appear, to give the appearance of evidence. Beyond this they can do anything. Their factualness is never questioned.” (David Levi Strauss on the use of photographs in Newsweek, 2005, p 30)
“man likes signs and likes them clear” (Barthes 1977, p 29) Continue reading “Selecting the images to fit the political agenda”
Blurring the distinction between fact and fiction
Documentary photography tends to focus on the other as serious subject matter, from exotic natives adorning the pages of National Geographic to victims of the system or sufferers of disease or abjection. As Mary Panzer observed:
“exotic subjects can be found at home, simply by crossing the boundaries erected by class, political affiliation and cultural taboo. Long before photography, crime and impoverishment provided highly popular subjects for illustrated books, articles, prints and engravings. Photographic studies of the streets of New York, the sewers of Paris, and the back-alleys of London, Shanghai, Calcutta and Rome continued this well-established tradition. The hellish environments created by industry provided fresh turns on old subjects, often accompanying reports on the need for reform” (2005, p 12) Continue reading “Blurring the distinction between fact and fiction”
‘Shady commerce’ or ‘Complex contract’
Sontag warned of the dangers of assuming the objective nature of photographs, as well as the honesty of the photographers themselves:
“despite the presumption of veracity that gives all photographs authority, interest, seductiveness, the work that photographers do is no generic exception to the usually shady commerce between art and truth” (1977, p 6)
Carl Whetham photography 