The “Perfect” Lie
Modern digital cameras—along with powerful new darkroom tools and even Artificial Intelligence—have forever changed the landscape of photography. The ability to capture hundreds or thousands of images without concern where we once had to carefully plan our shots based on the limited number of exposures on our film rolls has allowed our creative muscles to weaken, and the ability to alter images with software like Photoshop mean we are no longer bound to what the camera and our creative eye saw in the moment.
It has also lured us into a fantasy of perfection in image quality, versus the powerful and meaningful truth of what is real. This is not to say film photography is better than digital, or vice-versa; but I want to explore a little here how these changes in technology have changed us as photographers, makers, and story tellers.
Take a look at this photograph:
This image was made in 1933 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, renowned street photographer and co-founder of Magnum Photos. Yet there are a number of things I could argue are imperfect or “wrong” with this image: it’s not properly focused; the subject is unclear; the primary human element is in the corner of the shot, and the secondary human element is blurred and almost undetectable at first, and also in the corner of the image. Of course, there are also a number of things “right” about this image: the composition is segmented into distinct thirds; there is strong contrast across the image that makes the eye wander in exploration.
I’m not critiquing the image or (God forbid) Bresson. At the end of the day, it is an image that perfectly fits within his photographic philosophy, of capturing what he termed, the “decisive moment.” It is an image that shows real life, as it really was, in that moment, as he saw it. It is what he calls, a “picture story.”
As a nascent street photographer, I often struggle with my own picture-storytelling. I shoot both digital and film (I prefer film, but suffer with its “limitations” after experiencing the ease and fuck-up-ability of shooting digital).
Take a look at this photograph:
I was excited when I took it with my Nikon FE2; but after developing the film then digitizing it, I realized it was out of focus; in fact, nothing in the entire roll was in focus (the result of an issue with the focusing screen). There are other issues with this image from a composition standpoint. Yet, I still love this image, it’s actually a personal favorite of mine. Why? Because it tells a story. It was a moment and it asks questions — about the woman, about the context, about the scene. It was a decisive moment.
My point is…
There is no “perfect” in photography. And Bresson teaches us this lesson constantly in his work. Many of his photographs are arguably “imperfect” or “flawed.” If I didn’t state who the photographer in the first image was (and if it weren’t identifiable as Bresson), any photographer might balk at its worthiness, from a number of viewpoints. But Bresson wasn’t looking for “perfect.” He was looking for stories. He was looking for moments as a photographic anthropologist, which is how I view street photography. He was looking for those decisive moments that happen in an instant, before they vanish for eternity. His images immortalize those moments, even after they have been imperfectly captured or subsequently “perfected” in the darkroom.
But there is no “perfect” image. And no matter how much we try to make an image perfect — whether film or digital — and no matter how many images we take, we need to ask ourselves, why am I capturing this moment? What is the image I want to create that will tell this story to others? What does this image or scene tell others about our world and our life in it?
These are the questions that matter (to me).
Why I photograph
I don’t take photographs or create images to sell them or to become famous. My images are my way of capturing the world I see, for me. I do like sharing them with others, but even there I’m looking for feedback about what was captured or how it was captured, not compliments (so much). I want to be the “photographic anthropologist” I see in Bresson and others, so when I’m dead and gone others can see the world, people, and places I saw, the way I uniquely saw them. That is what matters to me.
The modern digital photography marketplace tells me I’m imperfect as a photographer; but there is no “perfect” to pursue or strive for here, and that lie we are sold and tell ourselves as photographers is what limits us from producing truly meaningful images and from telling truly meaningful stories through our craft.
