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Sam Broadley

Student Number: 200642719

Word Count: 2,919

“A trend exists within contemporary photography to blur the

line between what is real and what is staged. The viewer does

not know the terms on which to read (the) imagery” (Higgins,

2013, p.130). Discuss.

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COMM5805M Cultures of Contemporary Photography

The above quote is from contemporary art photography writer

Jackie Higgins. Her assertion initially implies that the trend

to ‘blur the line’ comes from within contemporary photography-

as oppose to the exhibition of that photography, but in the

latter part of the statement she then goes on to discuss the

role of the viewer, separate to the image-making process. In

doing so Higgins is now concentrating on not only the image

itself, but the way an image is viewed, in other words; the

photograph’s context. In this essay I intend to explore

further the relationship between an image’s content, such as

its formal elements; composition, light, vantage point, etc.

as well as its subject matter and its context, so where and

how we view an image, be it as a scientific text or artefact,

in an art gallery, as a social photograph, or in any

combination of the aforementioned settings. By studying these

two influential factors in how to read a photograph I should

be able to conclude with a fairly broad understanding of

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Higgin’s ‘trend’ as well as perhaps challenging “the

ontological framework commonly held for discussing

photography” which is limited to “the photograph – the frame –

and linked to whoever held the camera” (Azoulay, 2010, p.11)

and ignores the dynamic between these, and the role of the

observer, or the images context.

Since a widened acceptance of the “limitations of considering

the photograph as a recording of ‘physical reality’” (Wright,

2004, p.90) many critical assessments on the way we read

images have championed context to be as important as content.

Blakesley (2011, p.79) writes, “what lies beyond the frame of

an image is just as important in reading images critically as

what is inside the frame” (2011, p.79). Welling (Higgins,

2013, p.98) reflects similarly, “It’s not that I don’t care

about content, but content is not the only way a photograph

has meaning”. This emphasis on the way we receive images,

reduces the significance of the mechanical process itself, and

reinforces Berger’s (1972) notion that the changing platform

and new-found availability of art, allows you (as the viewer)

to “see them (the images) in the context of your own life.”

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This theory advocates the importance of the individual, in the

same way Barthes’ ideas regarding ‘The Death of the Author’

also suggests that the reader holds more responsibility to the

text than the author, as it is the reader’s personal,

subjective experience that will shape the way they receive and

interpret information. “The birth of the reader” he says “must

be at the cost of the death of the Author” (1998, p.386). I

want to go on to look at the capacity in which one views an

image, using contemporary examples from each setting to

illustrate how they reinforce or subvert expectations, in

either instance, playing off preconceived ideas of how images

are intended to be read.

Hughes (2012, p.10) considers neither the “properties of the

image” nor “the interpretation of readers” as fixed. The

status of an image is not only negotiated after its production

depending on what style of photography it falls under (I will

go on to discuss this further) but also what time period the

image is viewed in. Take for instance the anthropometric

photographs of the 19th century, these were “intended to be

read for (their) informational content, but now would be read

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as an insight into the social, intellectual and perhaps even

sexual background… of its unknown photographer” (Banks, 2001,

p.11). The progression of these images from scientific

artefact, to simply a social document reinforces the notion of

the image’s reception as a fluid entity, and in doing so

allows the viewer no opportunity to understand ‘the terms on

which to read an image’, as these terms are under constant

redefinition. The view that “photography has enabled science

to record and document” (Wilder, 2009, p.1) is one that

conceptual artist Joan Fontcuberta too questions. He combines

“his interest in science with playful humour” (Bardis, 2004,

p.215) in both the content and the context of his images. His

(1993) project ‘Constellations’ (Fig. 1) immediately appears

to be an astronomical photograph, but in fact “what is

depicted is not the stars against the night sky, but rather

nothing more than a plethora of unfortunate insects against a

dirty windshield.” (Bardis). He looks to challenge photographs

contextually too, in his early photographic series ‘Fauna:

Specious Origins’ (1987, Fig. 2), Fontcuberta combined journal

notes about fictional animals with photography, field diaries,

sound recordings and a ‘documentary’ film. “This work

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persuasively asserts that the way we think about things

depends a great deal on how they are presented to us.”

(Feagin, 1993, p.69) The distrust that Fontcuberta imbues his

audience with goes beyond, as Feagin mentions “photographs,

despite their apparent realism (being) used to lie”; he uses

the exhibition space itself to challenge the status of

photography as an object of historical record. By using an art

gallery to display his images (for both projects, as they were

combined for Joan Fontcuberta: Stranger Than Fiction 2014) what we are

offered is “traditional photographic image(s) that are also

untrustworthy” (Bardis) as they are placed in an environment that

demands its audience to probe and question whatever they are

presented with. Fontcuberta (2014) himself concludes that

“photography is a tool to negotiate our idea of reality” both

in its production and its presentation.

The overlap that inspires so much of Fontcuberta’s work is by

no means exclusive to the broad disciplines of science and

(gallery) art. Many contemporary photographers look to

replicate the formal elements of documentary or street

photography but in an exhibition space, and in doing this

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offering an appropriation, or at least a re-contextualisation

of once very separate style of photography. The artist I will

now go on to examine, in this way allows his photographs to

“become artworks when put in the context of a museum or an art

gallery” (Gartus, 2005, p64). Richard Billingham’s seminal

‘Ray’s a Laugh’ series (1996, Fig. 3) “produced two types of

interpretation. On one hand, it reads as a political

documentary (that) addressed the working-class poverty of

1990s Britain… (and) on the other hand, with the 1990s

witnessing a rapid expansion of reality-television culture,

Billingham’s series was also interpreted as an entertaining

reality drama, satisfying a never-ending appetite for

confessional revelations” (Remes, 2007, p.1). Here we see the

same project representing two drastically different ideas,

importantly one of which lays claim to a form of inherent

veracity; the former, whilst the latter exists as a self-

proclaimed dramatic series. Perhaps it is important then to

consider not only what Blakesley (2011, p.79) called the

‘immediate context’, i.e. “the conditions under which the

image is viewed, including where it is viewed, its surrounding

context and the physical circumstances of the viewing” but

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also the photograph’s ‘original context’. He further defined

this as “the personal and social situation in which the artist

created the image”; important factors in this include when it

was created, the conditions under which the image was produced

and what inspired the artist’s response. These questions

unequivocally broaden our understanding of the aforementioned

images as they permit us, the audience, to make a more

educated reading of them. By no means however does this ensure

that a satisfying conclusion is reached, and in the instance

of Billngham’s ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ further research into the

photographs’ ‘original context’ meant in fact a more complex

dynamic was created. Whilst it is well acknowledged that

“Billingham had not intended to publish or to exhibit the

photographs” (Smith, 2012, p.25), it is too documented that

the photographs were taken on a “cheap snapshot camera”

(Billingham, 1998) to encourage saturated, brash colours and

poor focus, adding a legitimacy and directness to the images.

Such consideration for aesthetic qualities could be said to go

some to cultivating a narrative, or at least suggest a

message, which would detract from the even-handed style of

documentary that Remes first hinted at (Smith, 2012, p.25).

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Such a decision could be said to undermine Billingham’s at

this time, unique brand of “naïve realism” (Bate, 2009, p.63).

Higgin’s initial proposition is confirmed two-fold by

Billingham’s project. Both the creative decisions taken to

produce the series, and the way the images were later

presented attempt to blur an otherwise seemingly clear

distinction between the real and the staged, and whilst the

images are clearly not staged in the traditional sense, i.e.

by actors, an argument has certainly been made for Billingham

‘directing’ the image through his own practical shooting

decisions. In both the content; through Billingham’s shooting

techniques, and the context; through the photographs’

isolation from their original framework, could be said to have

distanced them from the reality they strive to reflect.

After concentrating my attention heavily on context so far, I

would like to dedicate some time to looking at the how content

can dissuade or persuade us to invest in an image as

‘reality’. To do this I will abstract individual formal

elements, and look at how they negotiate truth and fiction

within the work of a contemporary photographer. Higgin’s

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initial assertion referred to ‘a trend’ and ‘contemporary

photography’, both of which imply that current discourse on

truth in the recorded image has been subject to recent

development. Bate (2009, p.63) looks at this idea, with a

particular focus on the role of colour. He states that

contrary to contemporary belief, “the idea that reality is

depicted in monochrome grey… remained a dominant conception in

much documentary work until the late 1970s.” and whilst many

agree with Bate that colour photography currently occupies a

position as the “new reality” (2009, p.63) it is worth noting

the fluid position of ‘reality’ throughout photography’s

relatively short lifespan. Recent attention to colour’s

(amongst other formal elements) relationship with actuality

has come in the form of Bill Henson’s images (Higgins, 2013,

p.131, Fig. 4). These luxuriate in further tangling truth and

fiction’s complex dynamic though colour, light and tone. His

photography, especially his series ‘Untitled’ (2000- 2003)

suggest a sense of disquiet, by offering a “sequence of

glimpses” (Maloon, 1993, p.2) through shedding scant lighting

into deeply intimate situations. He achieves this too through

“distortion of colour and deepening of tone” meaning that when

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Henson displays his work there is a conscious “’drop out’ of

visual information” (Maloon, 1993, p.3) which reiterates

“their all-pervading sense of uncertainty” (Higgins, 2013,

p.130). Maloon continues, noting that “the loss of detail in

these images attenuates their 'reality', establishing suburbia

as a psychological environment more than a concrete, physical

one.” It is important to consider however that this does not

restrict the images solely to the realm of fiction, for a

number of reasons. Principally as Crombie (Higgins, 2013,

p.130) notes “although logic tells us they have been brought

together for the purpose of being photographed, they do not

look as if they have been directed to act in a certain

manner”. In this way the photographer tangles the narrative

photograph with social documentary. He penetrates this

distinction again by using models, who themselves are

teenagers. Although seemingly an obvious production decision,

Henson gives curiously little away about the subjects

themselves. Higgins (2013, p.130) writes “by keeping his

subject anonymous, he fuels further speculation”. The

speculation that Higgins alludes to is that regarding the

relationship between photographer and subject, and by keeping

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the project’s themes diffuse, i.e. the “ambiguities and

obscurities (that) combine repeatedly” (Higgins, 2013, p.130)

it is impossible to deny any relationship between Henson’s

imagery and reality, as the subjects are featured to represent

themselves.

Whilst Henson simultaneously juggles the formal elements;

namely light and tone, Jeff Wall considers the subject matter

central in the photograph’s portrayal of truth. His

meticulously structured images employ a realist-aesthetic to

provide the audience with “fully defined, perfectly coded

fields of information” (Mitcheson, 2010). This very complete

staging allows Wall to realise his own agenda, entirely

separate from photography’s timeless criticism that within the

frame resides too much incidental information. Wall states

that “the construction contains everything, there is no

‘outside’ to it, the way there is with photography in general”

(Garner, 2003, p.227). Mitcheson (2010) continues to defend

Wall’s idea, claiming that “in other photographs our awareness

of the presence of content not intended by the photographer

testifies to the reality of what was before the lens. In

Wall’s work, however, the construction is so complete, the

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coded message so omnipresent, that there seems to be no

possibility of discovering a blind field.” By allowing no

detail without rationale for doing so, Wall transcends tired

debate as to whether or not a photograph can lay claim to a

form of veracity by going “beyond the boundaries of what we

see and know; the staged photographs are not ‘authentic,’ but

they don’t lie because they are telling something that’s truer

than reality” (Godmilow & Shapiro, 1997, p.91). So not only

does Wall manage to “drown out the emanation of the real”

(Mitcheson, 2010), but he is also “able to produce something

that is truer than the spontaneous photograph” (Godmilow &

Shapiro, 1997, p.91). This is manifested throughout the

artist’s eclectic oeuvre, including the ‘everyday scenes’ that

Stallabrass (2011, p.4) discusses. Photographs, such as

‘Mimic’ (1982, Fig 5) exemplify Wall’s photography, by

emphasising the quotidian and in doing so containing implicit

acts of social significance. He incorporates social conflicts

in his other works too, such as; gender concerns in Outburst

(1989), class discussed Diatribe (1985) and The Arrest (1989)

focussing on race. These images all champion the incident, so

find themselves at ease in a gallery space “because, unlike

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the uncomfortable interplay of contingency and deliberation in

photojournalism and documentary photography, it was entirely

in the control of the artist” (Stallabrass, 2011, p.4). In

this way we are observing a re-contextualisation and

actualisation of Jean Rouch’s idea that fiction “is the only

way to penetrate reality” (Grant, 1998, p.193). Jeff Wall has

successfully and “intentionally blurred the distinctions

between what is invented and what is real” (Godmilow &

Shapiro, 1997, p.92) through his photography’s aesthetic

qualities. As with Billingham, Wall’s images appear candid and

informal in style; however they are denied the condemnation of

attempting to capture the real because of the artist’s

distance to claims of authenticity. The photographer’s

intention here separates the projects in a way which neither

content, nor the (immediate) context can.

Higgin’s initial assertion made two related, but seemingly

separate comments on the relationship between the real and the

staged (or the fictional) in photography. As a self-contained

statement in only 31 words she managed to hint at a great deal

of binary opposites that I have tried to exercise in this

essay. As mentioned, words such as ‘trend’ and ‘contemporary’

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suggest a reading concerned with time, whilst words like

‘real’ and ‘staged’ imply not only a literal interpretation of

the terms within the frame, but also relate to wider notions

of truth and fiction in both how the image is constructed and

received. The latter is hinted at again when Higgins mentions

‘the viewer’, which allows us to read into the two sentences

of the original statement as successive, i.e. not merely a

discussion of content and context as separate entities, but

how content may influence context. I looked to explore these

ideas through four main case studies; broadly speaking Joan

Fontcuberta stands to represent the fluid nature of properties

important when attempting to read an image, elements both

inside and outside of the frame. Richard Billingham’s work

continued these ideas, and his form of re-contextualisation

forced me to consider that the word context was simply to

diffuse; with immediate and original proving useful

distinctions to make. With both Henson and Wall I turned my

attention to the photographer himself- as opposed to the

reception of those images. Turning a critical eye to how and

why these images allowed me again to observe the diminishing

of distinctions between what is real and what is staged, with

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Henson in a very physical way and with Wall more in the way he

goes about producing photographs. Through studying these

artists what has become clear is my original naivety in trying

to form such clear distinctions between content and context.

The two are not mutually exclusive and I have tried to

illustrate this using example of artists who use this

essential bond as part of their photography, e.g. Joan

Fontcuberta, but also artists whose work struggles against

this conflict such as Richard Billingham. Vitally and finally

however I must note that due to the seemingly fluid nature of

all variables relating to Azoulay’s ‘ontological framework

(for) discussing photography’ such as ‘the photograph – the

frame – and… whoever held the camera’ it seems fully

appropriate to concur with Higgin’s original assertion that

“the viewer does not know the terms on which to read an image”

and while one may assume this to be a result of either the

photographer’s work in constructing the image, or the capacity

it is presented in, the truth is seemingly far more complex.

Both Billingham and Wall have produced work that taken on face

value looks to represent fairly intimate, candid, social-

documentary photography and they have both displayed their

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work in contemporary art spaces; the Saatchi Gallery and the

Tate respectively, yet the way in which their images are

perceived bear few similarities. This to me confirms Higgin’s

statement to be true, whilst forcing us to consider central

themes in interpreting photographs to be not only our

relationship with the work, but the artist intentions and

their relationship with their own work.

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