What do we trust now>? How do we trust an image? How do we know what is fake and real and what is staged and what isnt?
In the article by Kelli McClusky Tracking the Truth which appeared in Photofile magazine in 2006 she discusses the changing relationship between the documentary photograph and the surveillance camera image and the relationship that both of these have to "the truth". She questions whether documentary photography still has a role in recording the truth or whether we have become to suspicious of this type of image.
She then talks about the events that preceded the then-called "Redfern Riots" in Australia in 2004. The images are taken from a surveillance camera at a train station and show a bag snatch in process. The important point here, is that as McClusky notes, we must rely heavily on the captions that were printed in conjunction with these images. Without these captions the photos become de-contextualized and the image ambiguous. The image as it sits below, without a caption (much like the image of James Bulger she mentions earlier in the article) is unable to explain the 'full truth of the situation'.
So who do we trust? the caption writers?
She then compares these to photographer Dean Sewell's images of the same area in Redfern that the rioting happened in. these images are needless of captions and speak themselves. BUT the point McClusky makes again is do these images actually show and unbiased truth>? or do they just attend to the truth>?
She ends by saying that in terms of showing the truth that surveillance systems come out on top - "you cant get more impartial than a machine" but is this how we want to interact with people? is not the eye of a person better to view the world through than the eye of a machine>>>???
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