Truth or Reality?

“You have to disguise things as entertainment, but still leave a message and some poignancy” – Martin Parr

The documentary genre has the status to exert power upon the viewer, this is because each artist uses their approach to attempt to represent the truth, is it up to the viewer to decide on how truthful this is to them. Hegemony is the power exerted by a dominant group over others – achieved through the use of ideology – is it fair to argue that us as photographers exert a certain power over the viewer with the image. And if so Is it possible for an image to shows us a trace of the truth?

The first image was created by Diane Arbus, a visually beautiful and alluring image. She used photography to explore her own obsessions - people. Arbus images are confrontational and often frames her subject close up and forward facing.  She uses the cameras "mechanical reproduction" to visualize something which is intangible, and I feel this makes them authentic as each image delves into someone else’s world and makes the intangible tangible. The sensory experience in which the images she produces give us explore the idea of an "Aura", I feel as though the moment below is temporary and by capturing this fleeting moment the decay of time is taken away and captured forever. The preciousness of the moment here like that explored by the branch of Walter Benjamin is brought under the spotlight. Here the subject is looking into the distance, vacant expression and flag in hand, we connotate a sense of patriotism here but the contrast in the eyes of the subject raises the question of what memories, experiences and hardships shape this veterans idea of "War" and what we think it is.
          Arbus makes the familiar sense of being patriotic strange. Arbus uses natural light and seems to want to make the people not the image the most important factor for the viewer. She often titles her work for instance the use of the word "freak" in one of her projects underpinned what she wanted to achieve - to uncover the familiar in the exotic. She chose people who are not "normal" who are transsexual, mentally challenged by framed them in order to shape them our of their indifferent.  People may argue that she had an easy ride by selecting such subject matter but she paid the price. With her own suicide. I think this act reflects the level in which she wanted to engage with the people she met, the respect and angst she felt.But maybe what troubled her the most was the fact that photography is indexical and her own experiences can never be fully viewed without the shed of doubt being  raised.

                                                       Veteran with a flag, N.Y.C. 1971

    Soldier; Auvenshine 183 Days in Iraq           -            Citizen: Rajah Saheb - Hairdresser     

Suzanne Opton is influenced by performance in her photography work. She aims to raise debate about soldering and art. She relies on the idea of the lie to reveal something which helps us to understand the truth of something more clearly. This is a confusing concept but interesting, Opton is using image making to capture a interaction between different types of people concerned in any war effort, the soldier, the family, the citizen. It is interesting to put the two together and offer a story of the citizen with the image. This personalization tshows us that she recognizes that a portrait alone cannot fully show us the hardships faced by her sitter.
          The social zeitgeist is explored by Opton as she wants to question the morality of war. By photographing all of those involved or effected by it. She looks at both sides of the effort and I feel this is a more honest and more accurate record of interpretations. Then we form our own considered from this. She attempts to deal with the truth and lie of the image by creating surreal and unusual compositions. She often objectifies her subjects head like above. Often lit using artificial light which reinforces an out of  the ordinary feel. The image on the left I find visually intriguing and what Opton does is she creates a false event and uses its falseness to deal with the question whether or not  whether her image is representing the truth. I get a real sense of closeness and intimacy, something I have never experienced from photos of soldiers before. And this goes back to the social relevancy because Opton is attempting to make these soldiers more than just numbers in what the mass media often make them out to be. She wants to be a force of change like Arbus, to question our expectations of people and stereotypes. However the line of contrast can be drawn upon how they attempted to achieve this, where as Arbus relied on the 'unaltered' and the detail of the untouched I think Opton represents the modern idea of what documentary has become. She alters everything and by doing this entertains our eyes with something visually stunning and alluring, but still manages to capture something we I and many others can relate to. She doesn't forget her own moral obligations.

To conclude, images are taken and made, the very act of taking an image is in a way constructing a visual representation, an image can never fully represent the whole and utter truth. But it is in this distinction that we can start to use the genre to engage with people, to inform, educate and create something unique which captures the zeitgeist/soul of the sitter. As Martin Parr pointed out “entertainment” engages people, Sontag argued that by reinforcing ideas of what is real and what isn’t the viewer is actively participating in an addictive consumerism (Sontag: 24). We mustn’t let image making become about merely entertainment, I believe we should treat our subject with respect and treat the audience with the respect of using image making to do something different, unique and inspiring.