Fact, fiction and faction

Photography is a powerful medium to visually record the world we live in and like literature lends itself to classification in terms of subject matter and genre. Personally, I am influenced by the documentary tradition, and much of the work I admire fits into that category. 

However I am also influenced by ‘staged work’, be it still life, fine art photography and more interpretive representations that involve techniques such as Intentional Camera Movement. But are these definitions mutually exclusive? Can a documentary project involve more subjective, interpretive and expressive representations? 

I think a lot of people associate the term ‘documentary’ with objective truth. But this raises a number of questions regarding the nature of photography and its ability to represent the ‘truth’. John Berger asserts that while photographs under certain circumstances help alert the public to ‘the truth of what is happening’, the idea of ‘utter truth’ can confuse possible levels of knowing. [1]

Magnum photographer Gregory Halpearn challenges genre definitions in his photographic projects by exploring a spectrum of terminology used to define categories within the broader label of ‘documentary’ (Fig. 1). He says: “In a way, I think of everything I do as fiction, and yet I know that everything I do is also somehow rooted in reality or realism.”[2]  

His projects often show a version of his truth—a subjective, personal vision—that doesn’t necessarily conform to the ideals that the documentary label presents. [3]

Fig.1. Halpearn 2021. Comparing photography to literature, he breaks down various genres and subgenres on a sliding scale between Nonfiction and Fiction, referencing categories such as Lyric Documentary and Magical Realism. The former was used by the late Walker Evans to describe his work. The latter, as described by Halpern, is grounded in reality, yet something fantastical or fabulous can occur to disrupt a scene. In the context of photography, this could occur within a book image sequence.

In many of his projects, Halpern harnesses emotion and feeling to drive his work with the goal to affect his viewers in an emotional sense through a blend of fact and fiction.

In the book ‘Schindler’s Ark’, author Thomas Kenneally shows how definitions such as fiction and non-fiction in the world of literature can be interwoven, blending the real and the imagined, to create stories that could be defined as ‘faction’.

Where literature makes a point of distinguishing genres (it is usually stated on the back cover or library shelf), it is interesting to note that photographs do not.[4]

The question of how to react to, and frame, the sensitive situations we may be confronted with as photographers is an important one. Is it just as important to categorise or label the work we produce as a result of these situations?  Should we endeavour to remain objective, or is it inevitable that our work will be coloured by personal views? What is ‘truth’?

1. BERGER, John. 2013. Understanding a Photograph. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

2. WOLUKAU-WANAMBWA, Stanley. 2021. Gregory Halpern on the Impossibility of Documentary Photography. Aperture. Available at: https://aperture.org/editorial/gregory-halpern-on-the-impossibility-of-documentary-photography/ [accessed 29 March 2022].

3. As seen in his projects such as Los Angeles and Vacinity , Halpern harnesses emotion and feeling to drive his work with the goal to affect his viewers in an emotional sense.

4. HALPEARN, Gregory. 2021. Documentary Sur/Realism—Defining Documentary. Magnum Photos. Available at: https://www.magnumphotos.com/learn/course/gregory-halpern-documentary-sur-realism [accessed 30 March 2022].

Fig.1: Gregory HALPEARN. 2021. Documentary Sur/Realism—Defining Documentary. Magnum Photos. Available at: https://www.magnumphotos.com/learn/course/gregory-halpern-documentary-sur-realism [accessed 30 March 2022].