Documents and the other side

The debate has been reborn several times regarding documents and documentarism. A lot of different approaches have been concieved. And now I am reading a never-ending flow of words, pros and cons again on Internet that looks like a new debate. I am trying to find the sense of it with searching the answer whether this phrase exists at all. If the answer is yes, then let’s put it immediately into history’s dusty files and we kindly ask all those people that consider themselves as true-tellers from photographic approach (namely documentarists and not document erectors) to find an other definition for their activity.

As far as I am concerned - for a short time - I have been trying hard to respect any kind of opinion regardless if it matches mine or not. (Am I getting old?) But as I am still holding a strong point of view, instead of contradicting other opinions and quarrelling or any other no-use activities, I am trying to explain my thoughts, or at least a relevant part of them. Not mainly with words but with organising an exhibition in the Hungarian Museum of Photography accompanied by my notes and some photos chosen as illustrations. I am convinced that this debate can be going on and on without the smallest hope to close it once for all. I think at this point we do not only talk about one of the basic ontological question of photography and it is not solely about the photographic style or photographers’ attitude. I simply do not feel like to take part in the 165-year-old debate that even seemed worthless at the time of its beginning.

I would like to describe only the documental-essence of photography. The main question is whether photos preserve their meaning at the time of exposure or time adds new approaches and changes them. Getting more into details of this question: is there any independent meaning of photography or it is a simple association base to generate own thoughts, knowledge, and feelings of viewers? In other words: is there an independent meaning of a photo that is universal always, everywhere and for everybody or do we individually fill it with meaning?

Since the invention of photography in each historical period it has been important for power-rulers to file in documents important happenings, famous figures, buildings constructed and everyday life at a satisfactory detailed and high-standard level being close in line with their ideas. Each historical period of the past 165 years has left behind its pictorial prints. The question is whether we can neglect when examining them, for what purpose they were taken and what part of them were actually published and shown to people at the time when they were taken, in which context and with what kind of ideology?

I would like to emphasize that power rulers of each historical period used the same methods, we can say with almost the same scenario, but now considering many aspects - none of them having political colour - we are checking only the era after 1945, that was overflowed with changes, historical events and talented photographers. We would like to show 100 photos in the exhibition putting next to one another the well-known, emblematic (official) image-photos with photos not really fitting in the officially accepted trend therefore not having publicity and being hidden.

We were searching for photos that kept their meanings since they were exposed, and we selected some where the message of the photos has completely changed, it can happen that it has a contradictious meaning. Besides official point of historical view, private history can be seen as well, the way people lived their life at that time.

I think it is necessary to repeat some of the axioms derived from the unique aspect of photography, because they seem to be forgotten. It is important to draw a line and to understand the difference: some photos are consequences of arrogance, needs and good or bad functionality of majority power-rulers’ ideology and other thoughts, while others seem to be part of this category on the surface but they have nothing to do with it, because they can derive from laws of photography, regardless who is zooming and who is zoomed through the objective.

The following collection of theses is a selection from an essay-book, that was very popular 15 years ago, then became wide-quoted, and by today almost forgotten. Each generation should read at least once, but those that have short-term memory it is advisable to re-read it again and again. I have this suggestion not only because I agree with these theses, but also it helps to clarify the real meaning of phrases before initiating a debate.

„A photo is evidence. Things that we hear of, but we are suspicious about them, become evidence if we see a photo of them.” (Susan Sontag: About photography. Budapest, 1981. p12.
„Taking a photo means to possess the object that is exposed. It means that we have a kind of relationship with the world. This connection is a talent; therefore it entitles to believe the possession of power.” (p10)
„From this we can conclude the belief that every happening - apart from any kind of moral laws - must be abandoned. Once it started, let it continue to follow on its own way, where the purpose of it is to enable the creation of something else: a photo. If the happening is over, the photo remains, and gives such an eternity to its object, that could never be happen any other way.” (p18).
„Each photo is a memento mori itself. Taking a photo is becoming part of somebody’s (something’s) mortality and vulnerability.” (p23)
„A photo, that cannot explain anything independently, can become an undrainable source for conclusions, argumentations and imagination.” (p31)

The person who takes a photo has clear understanding identity of picture and reality. Does the person who takes a photo have really clear understanding identity of the picture and reality? Can a photo be identified because of its sole pictorial identity with the reality bite, or each photo is a more or less successful example of a self-governing sign-system with its own power and laws? Can a photo really replace the reality? Furthermore: does the element of reality being doubled when impictured and does it become an other kind of reality different from the original one? Does a photo have the information on its surface covered with the total of signs and structures? Or as it is described in one of the definition of sign: signs are for remembering and to start an associative development that has closer connection to us than to the photo itself.

Are there any basic criteria when defining objectivity of photography? Can something be objective at all while it is influenced by continuous (subjective) artistic decisions, like when and in which moment photo is taken, in other words when and at what point a photographer cuts the continuously moving time-line in order to emphasise one single part of a moment from this flow and to make a documentary, one single moment of the time flow from the very last moment of its existence. Above the selection of the time it is also an important decision making point, which part of the space surrounding us in 360 degrees a photographer chooses. Each photo is a small part of the total regarding time and space. Then how can we talk about objectivity? Do these subjective-dependant choices make documents at all? Apart from the simple fact that the person who took the photo was present at a certain point of space and time and he has a special instrument with him that can record pictures, is a photo capable of making documents all above these? If not, then what can be considered as a document? And what is documentarism? If it is just a little bit subjective and turning the reality not too much, it can be called as documentary, if it changes reality more than this it is called document erection? How does it really go?

Can we have a debate with Pierre Bourdieu’s statements: „photos are considered as absolutely realistic and objective recording of visible world, because from the very beginning it has been defined as having social ’realistic’ and ’objective’ goals.” (Social definition of photo. In: Özseb Horányi (editor’s note): Photos with several meanings. Budapest, 1982 p226-242). Is the piece of reality in the photos real or fake? Compared to what? More original or more fake? What do we compare to what? In our case, we are examining a well-segregated era’s photos from 1945 to the changings of 1989. Most of people lived and witnessed this era are dead. Who decides, which one and what is it like? Before anybody initiates a debate has to answer all these questions, too.

What can we think after so many unanswered questions? The cleverest solution in this situation if we put up another one: can we really make photos of only those things that are visible? Or can we take photo of what we see? And if we take a photo, what can we do with it?