What is it about?
Debates around authenticity within photographic discourse are persistent. Some have revolved around documentary photography, while other discussions focus on the ethical validity of digitally edited news photographs and indeed the photographic medium itself. This article acknowledges existing debates around photography and authenticity, before locating the discussion within the creative practice of making strange (defamiliarisation) as a method to critically engage with wider, and continually changing, discourses around the use of photographic images.
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Why is it important?
Accepting that creative subjectivity is a strength of photography, rather than a limitation of the form – and by not letting ourselves be distracted by third party debates around authenticity – enables creative practitioners to engage critically with wider, and continually changing, discourses around the use of photographic images.
Perspectives
Photography is not a conveyor of authenticity outside of itself. On the contrary, photography is a form of visual communication with an aesthetic language that lends itself far more comfortably to re-presentation, rather than representation – strangeness rather than authenticity, refraction rather than reflection.
Dr Yaron Meron
Monash University
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This page is a summary of: Photographic (In)authenticity, Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy, December 2019, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/23644583-00401018.
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