Photographic Skullduggery

Errol Morris’ photojournalistic investigation of cattle skulls in the Bad Lands opens an interesting dialogue regarding the placement of photos in historical context. Even before he presented his mosaic of arguments I was already working through the dialectics considering the possible points of view regarding the veracity of historical photography. Morris’ description of the relocated skull and the mysteriously placed mantel clock immediately conjured from my memory Roger Fenton’s cannonballs in the Valley of Death (Who from Clio I could forget?) and the almost painstaking contrivances some savants employed to challenge the truth of the images: shadows, compass directions, positions of firing batteries, and a surly guide with ill-fitting shoes. But the truth of it lay not necessarily in the image itself but the message it was trying to communicate – that there were a heck of a lot of cannonballs flying around on that particular day. Morris eventually reaches similar conclusions – should we be really concerned with the details of the image (the numbers of teeth missing from pink combs) or the message it conveys? In the mix he touches on the labors involved by the photographers, their trials at the hands of critics, and even consideration of the person viewing the image. Is it necessary or correct to indict the photographers of skullduggery as they attempt to work their art to get just the right shot? Certainly as historians we want to ensure that photographs represent as much of the truth as is possible but some latitude must be applied; no one photograph can assure one hundred percent certitude of a specific moment, historical or not. I realize this in the photos that I include in the web pages I create to describe the Berlin Airlift. Cheering, waving crowds standing on piles of rubble welcoming Allied planes bringing relief supplies while off to the side a young boy stands atop a signpost to catch sight of the event. How did the kid get up there? Did someone lift him up? Were the shadows on the aircraft representative of the right time of day or the direction the flights came from? I think I’ll leave those questions in the dust with the moldy cannonballs and cow skulls. Suffice to say something important happened in June 1948 at Tempelhof airport and the photograph carries that message. As Morris concludes, “all photos are posed” and “there is no such thing as pure documentary evidence.” After all didn’t we learn from Moretti that historians decide what evidence to include and what to leave out? Why shouldn’t photographers be granted the same license? The value is in the message.

Comments

[Curtis Vaughn]

The Skullduggery article was interesting. I took a course focused on the 1930's with Professor Stewart a couple of years ago. We discussed many of the photos used in the article including the Walker Evans work. One of the things that I learned from that class is that people want to control how they are seen in photographs. That is why we have few family photographs reflecting every day life. Therefore, I am not surprised that professional photographers want to control what they picture.

Of course, I am controlling the images that I want to use on my web site. I will decide that some photos suit the story that I want to tell, while others are left out because in my judgment they do not improve the story. I guess you could say that I am moving the skull or adding an alarm clock. I agree with John that there is no problem with selectivity as long as the essence of the story is correct.

Curtis

[Chris James]

John, you are right, both this series and Morris's series on Roger Fenton both get at the "essential truth" debate. But, perhaps more applicably to Clio II, there's an important aspect of captioning. According to Rothstein, the controversy came down to publishers' disregard for the photographer's caption. In other words, publishers deliberately took a photo out of context to demonstrate something that the photo could not demonstrate (the 1936 drought, which occured after the photograph's creation).

There is certainly a lesson there for digital historians...