The status of the photographic image as a source of information has been questioned since the invention of photography. In response, the credibility of news and documentary photography is conventionally justified in terms objectivity, where the faithful recording of events and people in front of the lens is said to secure truth.
This questioning of photography’s status accelerated with the advent of digital technology. From the first days of the digital image revolution, analysts and practitioners have been concerned with challenges to the integrity of the image. Philip Jones Griffiths observed in 1999 that “we are probably the last generation that will accept the integrity of the photograph.” Yet the fact that we now live in a world where more than 1.8 billion images are uploaded to social media sites every day suggests people see images as having great value, while at the same time also posing more challenges with regard tot he credibility of images.
In the last decade, concerns about the credibility of news and documentary images have periodically erupted in debates about the manipulation and post-processing of digitally produced photographs, and in 2009 World Press Photo revised its rules to make clear that photographs in the contest could not be altered except in accordance with accepted industry standards.
The 2015 World Press Photo contest saw 22% of the entries in the penultimate round rejected for manipulation. I clarified the criteria, and commented on reports about this issue, in this Storify.
Writing personally, I’ve published a long, conceptual post about how, when and why I think the manipulation of certain photographs matters. It argues for a reframing of photography in terms what we want image to do rather than what we think images are.
One of the conclusions that I personally find compelling is the need to move much of the debate about the integrity of the image towards verification, which involves much more than digital forensics. Section 9 of “The Integrity of the Image” report discusses what is involved in this move to verification. I’m hoping we can do more work on verification and visual storytelling in the foreseeable future.
Photo credit: Faked Iranian missile test photo, via Fourandsix.com.