Pixiq

Photos used to tell the truth ... for the simple reason that cameras captured what went on in front of them. A photo was a memory, proof of something having taken place, a small window into a reality long since past and otherwise forgotten.

This obviously changed with the introduction of digital photography. Even a straight digital photograph lacks the tangibility of a negative image stamped onto a strip of film that you can see and touch. Instead you have data stored on a memory card. Most people don’t even pretend to understand how that actually works. We just gladly accept that it does. I’m sure many of our predecessors stuck with film only would have been jealous, the surrealists in particular ... but I digress.

With the steady advancement and increasing availability of digital manipulation software, the lines between “photograph” and “complete fiction” have been blurred to a point where nobody can be sure anymore if what they’re looking at ever in fact took place before a cameras lens. It could all be created in a computer for all we know.

I myself am not THAT much of a purist in this regard. Sometimes I take photos:

 Sometimes I make photos:

 Other times, I definitely fake photos.

However, one thing I never do (for various reasons I’ll get into later) is use digital trickery to splice bits and pieces of unrelated images together into fictitious compositions. A very talented Icelandic artist friend of mine, Ólöf Erla, works in this way and her images are awesome. At a show of hers last year she had arranged, on one wall, a bunch of snapshots—most of them just very simple and somewhat bland snapshots of a model or thing or background—the point of which was to show the viewers the raw ingredients of her stunning completed compositions. I was amazed by her skill. I would not have a clue how to do most of what she does. I was also impressed with this openness about her work ethic. She admitted to me that she’s not really that much of a photographer, her background being in graphic design, and she wasn’t presenting these images as photos but simply as artwork.

This brings me to a point I’m becoming increasingly adamant about with regards to my own work. I made a decision rather early on that I would not fake something I could make. This presents a physical challenge, which I find far more exciting than the idea of really submerging myself in the complicated world of digital manipulation, because to be honest, I’d rather be outside doing weird stuff or out in the garage building or painting something than sitting in front of my computer painstakingly composing an image.* That’s just how I roll. However, this rule still allows me the freedom, if the mood hits me, to fake something in a picture that couldn’t possibly happen otherwise or that I'm unable to pull off working alone, which is how I prefer to work. In this case I limit myself to only combining elements that were in front of the lens during the same shoot (just not necessarily at the same exact moment) or perhaps removing an element of the photo to elevate it from real to surreal. I never cut/paste things together otherwise.

Now obviously I can’t expect everyone who looks at my work to be aware of these rules I’ve set myself. Therefore, I’m not altogether surprised that people often assume something in my pictures is photoshopped when in fact it isn’t. I am, however, often surprised by the things people assume are photoshopped—just using off-camera lighting outdoors has sparked the question (not once but many times) “is this a composite?” when it’s really just a very simple lighting technique, employing one small flash and a transmitter.

The image I've chosen to illustrate this post of the branch apparently growing out of my mouth is a perfect example of this misunderstanding. My classmates and teachers at school remarked after I’d presented it and discussed what I was attempting to express with it **,  how “well I photoshopped it.” I received similar feedback when I posted it on flickr. It hadn’t even occurred to me that anyone would assume this image was a composite. I even had to admit, taking a step back and attempting to see it from a detached perspective, that it actually did look like it may have been faked. Because of all the trouble I went through to create this essentially straightforward photograph, I was greatly bothered by this. I’d painted my skin and sprayed my hair white and spent an uncomfortable half hour or so posing with this unwieldy branch clamped in my teeth, scratching my gums at one point, and somehow I manage to look so relaxed that hardly anyone realizes what they’re looking at is exactly what it looks like they’re looking at. A bit comical in retrospect. I will admit that I tampered with the background of this photo. I hung a white sheet over a window behind me, and afterwards became annoyed at the wrinkles and folds in the sheet, and spent a good deal of time smoothing it out. That’s all.

This is only one example of this conundrum, which probably bothers nobody but me. And really, when some of my earliest and most popular work displays various elements of fake-ness, I have only myself to blame. In upcoming posts, I’ll delve a bit deeper into the preparation and stories behind individual photographs that have been similarly misunderstood. Stay tuned.

* I do, however, just to be absolutely clear on the matter, use Photoshop to some extent in all of my photos in order to fine-tune color and the overall mood and appearance. Sometimes very little, sometimes quite a bit.

** I created this image when taking a course at Icelands Academy of the Arts (from which I graduated in 2009) where we were supposed to create what to us was an image with a religious or biblical undercurrent. Because I personally can interpret this image in more than one way, some of them not at all having to do with religion in any way, I'm not going to go into any one interpretation here. I can't even settle on one title, having come up with at least three that all fit. As with most of my work, I encourage that the viewer read what they want into it.