Lying and Photography

The idea of photography being a major tool, one which facilitates the telling of fictional stories and lies, is something that isn't always in the front of our minds as the shutter clicks. For me, photography is largely associated with journalism. It plays a major role in emphasizing some aspect of a story and facilitates the spreading of important information. In journalistic photography, truth is quite significant. The majority of audiences simply read the story and look at the photo and conclude that it is factual. While this is not the case with every source and in every situation, photography is still considered remarkably trustworthy considering the ways one can lie through the lens, but also using all of the recent digital editing techniques.

With this in mind, I then sort of skip over to thinking about how a photographic lie matters depending on the weight and significance of the image or collection of images. The images of fairies that were innocently fabricated by two young girls prompted discussion, but most likely little uprising. However, I would imagine that images of war such as the staged, iconic image from Iwo Jima or even Roger Fenton's photographs with the cannon balls stirred up some anger in the viewers. Ultimately, we have few to no ways of proving the authenticity of an image. I would say that this is not unique to photography, but something that brings conversation and controversy to the medium.