THE LYING PHOTOGRAPH

A photo was never enough. A photo couldn’t tell the whole picture. It was as if a photo was just lie that everyone mistook as intrinsically ‘the truth’ because it looked so real. Perhaps that’s why I love a collage and photo montage I love the idea of forcing the viewer to contend with, what you were showing them is not real it’s altered. it’s all a prospective. it always was a perspective.

My University had an amazing archival photo collection and one of my favorite things to do was to look at the contact sheets. one photographer in particular was Henri bressant’s. he was always running around talking about his decisive moment. but that was a myth or a straight up lie because that decisive moment was only made possible by The moments before the moments after it and that one singling out that perfect frame. Making the decisive moment more like a decisive curation. I love a contact sheet, it speaks way more to the journey of what’s happening than any single picture could ever do.

there’s something about the dIstorted proportions of college that Force the viewer to contend with the curation of the image maker. It renders the image so impaired that it’s impossible to take it as absolute truth.

though a photo should never be taken as absolute truth because there was always something that happened right before or right after to the left and to the right of what was captured in the frame. Often the sun and the mood itself is part of the conspiracy.