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BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento —
ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender
identities in the human portrait digital photography *
Ficção e realidade na construção de identidades
de gênero na fotografia digital de retratos
Patrícia Amorim da SILVA **
Abstract: the content of this research is of timely concern because the means of digital
manipulation are contemporaneously evolving and developing; many artists are utilizing this
progression to transgress, with unsurpassed fluidity, among the factual and infinite possible
fictions. However, the specificity of this paper lies in the close examination of where this
contemporary photographic practice is applied to the facticity of human portraiture wherever
the recorded image is subjectively moulded to create the aforementioned fictive character.
The objective and subject of the research is to develop a discussion that explores how this
photographic manipulation of the human body affects the way one perceives the person
depicted. This subject matter bares contemporary social relevance, as the practice of image
manipulation has become a common place within the modern consumption of images.
Through this observation, it is argued that, wherever the modelled reality is consumed as
the register of reality, ipso facto, one is also subject to the modelling of greater worldly
understanding. To state one example it may be deemed that, through fashion photography
one is susceptible to the perception and insinuations of body standardization.
Keywords: Arts; digital photography; gender identity; image manipulation.
Resumo: o conteúdo desta pesquisa é oportuno devido à evolução e ao desenvolvimento
contemporâneo dos meios de manipulação digital; muitos artistas estão utilizando desta
progressão para transgredir, com insuperável fluidez, o factual entre as possíveis e infinitas
ficções. No entanto, a especificidade deste trabalho reside no exame aprofundado de onde esta
prática fotográfica contemporânea é aplicada à facticidade do retrato humano onde quer que a
imagem registrada é subjetivamente moldada para criar o personagem fictício acima mencionado.
O objetivo e o tema da pesquisa é desenvolver uma discussão que explora como esta manipulação
fotográfica do corpo humano afeta a maneira como se percebe a pessoa retratada. Este assunto
descobre relevância social contemporânea, a prática da manipulação de imagem tornou-se um
lugar comum dentro do consumo moderno de imagens. A partir dessa observação, argumenta-
se que, onde quer que a realidade modelada é consumida como o registro da realidade, ipso
facto, um é também sujeito à modelação de maior compreensão mundana. Para mencionar um
exemplo pode-se considerar que, através da fotografia de moda, são suscetíveis a percepção e
as insinuações de padronização corpo.
Palavras-chave: Arte; identidade de gênero; manipulação de imagens; fotografia digital.
* Part of a Master's thesis in Fine Art, presented at School of Arts of the University of Northampton
(England) in 2013.
** Visual artist graduated at Centro Universitário de Belas Artes de São Paulo. Masters in Fine
Arts at the University of Northampton. E-mail: patricia.ptasilva@gmail.com
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
1 The human body representation
From the Renaissance period until now the human body has been understood from
an external point of view; we build our body picture through someone else’s gaze
not through our own. Throughout history the human body has been represented in
a variety of different forms. This change occurs to the body in accordance with the
physical environment reflecting the culture of some specific time and place. This
change denies the body its universal character and as such the body may be
perceived or given meaning in a subjective way (according with the person’s
perception, her background). The representation of the body is a conduit for
observing the behaviors which reflect the relationships in a society of a given time
and place. Beyond that which is most overtly present the image of the human figure
can inform as to such constructs as power, ideology and politics.
According to Michel Foucault (1926-1984) the vision of the human body as only a
physical entity emerged in the eighteenth century with the influence of the
Enlightenment (Foucault, 1975). The human being was not anymore the joint of the
spiritual and physical entity. Photography was also fundamental to that as it seems
to function like the human sight to offer empirical knowledge mechanically which was
exactly what the Enlightenment proposed. This French philosopher stands that the
discipline of individuals is possible to be executed through a device where the
techniques that allow us to see induce effects of power and for the means of coercion
become clearly visible on those who apply it (Foucault, 1975, p. 196). The camera
became an instrument of power that could be used in controlling people’s lives. It
represented an example industrial and scientific progress and therefore an
instrument of domination. To explain further photography was a method to classify,
identify, analyze the human being and through it correct and control him (this power
could be exercised by public institutions as schools, prisons etc.). So, some people
were eligible to live in society and others not.
At the nineteenth century with the massive colonization period photography was used
as tool for literalizing stereotypes and for exercising symbolic control over the bodies
of others in the form of their photographic surrogates, photography played a central
role in the formation of colonialism. It was not alone in this process (“orientalist”
subjects in Romantic painting were also stereotyped). But unlike such obviously
handcrafted images as paintings and prints, photographs belied their status as
statements about the world, and seemed instead to be truthful, uninflected
restatements of that world. The fact that the power of photographs to control and
stereotype was invisible made them especially insidious tools in the establishment
and maintenance of colonialism (Pultz, 1995, p. 20).
The evolution of digital photography also gave mobility to the body that at the
beginning of the nineteenth century was static. Furthermore, with the technology
advancement of being able to apply cameras into mobile phones, mobility is not only
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
given to the person to be photographed but also the photographer since the
equipment is much lighter; thus, expanding our perception of our own body and of
the world around us. The body is that which directs our gestures and behaviours, it
is that for which we are first seen and judged. As such the body is a prime motivator
in that which governs our social relationships. Hence when viewed as art the
portraiture of the body represents, besides the physical figure, the person´s
personality and his/her life style, according to his/her face characteristics, dress,
pose and gaze. Embedded in physicality we are alluded to identity. The artist tries to
translate the complexity of the human being into his/her face. Every aspect of its
personality is framed carefully, like the smile or the longing gaze. The best portraits
are the ones the viewer becomes part of it while they invest themselves in trying to
figure out who that person is or was. The viewer is able to lose himself or herself into
the work in a way that can transcend space, time and memory.
Through portraiture, the viewer can perceive the subjects identity, as they are able
to see the cultural, social, ethnical aspects that influenced her/his appearance. It is
a way to reaffirm our own sense of identity. The portrait is at the same time open to
various interpretations, it is a subjective experience. People can take various
interpretations of what was saw, of what it is represented in the picture. We can
extract different meanings from representation of the human body in photography
as can be seen in the photography of the past and the potentials of photography in
the present.
2 Digital photography
2.1 Introduction
The emergence of digital photography came in 1960, with a need for NASA
1
to map
the Moon's surface and send images to the Earth; the solution to this was to use the
advancements in computer technology. So, NASA switched from using analogue to
digital signals with their space probes to map the space. In the middle of the 1970s,
Kodak created the imaged sensor used in digital cameras; it consists of a small plate
that converts light to digital images. Kodak created the first professional digital
camera in 1991 (Nikon F-3) with 1.3-megapixel sensor (it is capable to record 1.3
million pixels that could produce a 5x7-inch digital photo-quality print). Since then,
the digital technology has developed faster and faster. The expansion of digitalized
technologies and other multimedia media markets permeated the accessibility of
people, professional or not, of such equipment. The camera sensor in digital works
in the same way as the film in the analogue. It is sensitive to light but with the
difference that it does not have grains but pixels, and technically the more
(mega)pixels it has the better quality the picture has.
1
U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
Current artworks produced using multimedia technologies are increasingly dynamic.
In the case of photography, the image is becoming difficult to analyse due to their
contemporaneity (the evolution of photography technology is so fast that it is difficult
to reflect about its usage). The photograph started to blend reality and fiction, no
longer representing reality. The photographer does not want to put time marks on
the picture but instead wishes to eternalize through its creation, the aspiration to
recreate the world every moment. To use photography to create an illusion became
much more attractive than to document the world outside. Digital photography
differs from the analogue in its process as it is no longer chemical but computerized
which allows the resulting product of this process to no longer necessarily be an
image fixed on a paper but now it need not go beyond binary information stored by
the computer. Although digital photography can be printed its binary format makes
it ideally suited to the Internet through blogs, websites and emails. It is faster and
cheaper. This leads to the future of photography.
2.2 Digital manipulation
Manipulation has happened since the beginning of photography; it was called
retouching and it was done with a paintbrush adding colours to the photograph. Even
though, despite this manipulation photography did not lose its credibility as indexical.
However, the technological development of photography that allows it, as a medium,
to express ideas began at the end of the XIX century.
The difference nowadays is that digital manipulation on the computer is easier and
accessible to everybody. The difference between the two processes is that almost
everything that is done with the analogue equipment is done faster with the digital.
This process of manipulation is consistently becoming more seamless as there is an
escalation in different methods for image interference or enhancement. These
burgeoning opportunities allow the captured image to transform the ordinary into
something unusual. The seamlessness now offered through digital photography and
manipulation conflates fact and fiction (the happening of a moment is mixed with the
author’s creation) with new curiosity, whereby the photographic image no longer
asserts itself as the representation of reality.
An example of this conflation can be found in the series Fictitious Portraits by the
artist Keith Cottingham
2
Through a mix of techniques and resources, Cottingham
imposes different perceived personalities via body manipulation. Looking at the
images causes the viewer confusion insomuch as questions are asked as to whether
what is perceived is a man or a woman, a child or an adult. In each case the viewer
is presented with an androgynous character which is imposed on the figures. Herein
considered observation creates a multitude of characters of the viewer’s design.
2
More information about the artist can be found in http://v2.nl/archive/people/keith-cottingham
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
Picture 1: Keith Cottingham - Fictitious Portraits (Triple), 1993.
Constructed photograph, chromogenic print.
Source: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts (online gallery):
http://www.feldmangallery.com/pages/artistsrffa/artcot01.html
An interesting anomaly that occurs in Cottingham’s work is where the seamless
perfection of digital technology is interrupted by the remnants of mounting. This
mounting process imposes a displaced real image to this androgynous image and
there is a further extenuation of dialogue between the real and fictitious (something
that has been invented), the false and true (whether it can be proven or not).
Furthermore, as a mode of social commentary, Cottingham imposes upon the facial
features from which the figures have been constructed a pattern of symmetry; thus,
bringing under critique notions of culturally beautiful and its associations to perceived
perfection. One can relate Cottingham’s work to the novel by Oscar Wilde A Portrait
of Dorian Gray. In this novel, the portrait becomes a true copy of the man and
encumbers the changes of age. This is unlike the character portrayed who becomes
crystalized, ageless. This slippage proposes the actuality of the man as a
representation of a fictional being; herein fact and fiction are conflated. The fact
means the ordinary life captured by the camera and the fiction means what is
interpreted from it. However, photographs allow us to be in contact with the world,
to show and reveal it to us. It is a representation of reality that requires a certain
amount of information to be understood.
Photographic manipulation brings a question about its own identity as through the
digital process it has become a more malleable medium. Is photography simulating
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
or changing reality? First the reality is altered by the digital photography through the
manipulation and second by the reader who will interpret this image according with
the context where is displayed and his/her background. It is soon approaching a time
when it will be impossible to distinguish what is real or not, who is human, or not.
What relation could we draw from this world to the one we live?
Photography is unreliable as any other medium as it is impossible to be impartial
when is communicating something to people through the codes (reflecting,
expressing or establishing a cultural behaviour) that are part of the image. There is
always a version of the reality to be told. Consequently, it can be classified into fiction
and nonfiction or fact fiction?
This question is much more than just the digital manipulation especially when new
media frequently decontextualizes the image representation. The viewer does not
have the chance to read the picture before the manipulation decontextualizes it. The
image loses its essence. For example, in the documentary photography, when a war
is happening and a picture is manipulated. This almost constitutes a paradox. As the
documentary is supposed to be an evidence of some real facts so they are not
supposed to be manipulated, which will raise ethical problems. So, how to identify a
modified image and how important is it to the reader? What is fiction and nonfiction?
Fiction, in this case, is a computer-generated image (it does not have a traditional
photographic referent) and nonfiction, obviously, is the opposite (it has an index of
reality). The same way the pictures are affected by the technology, these pictures
also affect people, for this reason, society has to rethink the way they see an image.
All these new possibilities to manipulate an image brought by the technology
available nowadays are redefining the world. The new possibilities available with this
new technology are limitless. We have computer software as Adobe Photoshop,
Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Illustrator, and CorelDraw and so on, so fourth. Cameras
also offer the photographer programs with tools to change the color range and frame,
crop the picture while he takes it. The computer software enables the photographers
to change almost everything in the picture, for example, the person’s size, his/her
height, skin color, hair color, eye color, the background, it is also possible to add or
remove something or someone from it. All this technology is changing at an incredible
speed. So, a photograph cannot be delivered as the world outside anymore, a
reproduction of reality. Through these photographic advancements there is a new
dimension to photography especially in the field of art dealing with constructed
images. Instead to take a picture people are creating images.
2.3 The falsity of photography
Photography has been exploring new aspects of the image through the digital
platform. The new digital photographic image gained wider possibilities and
interpretations. The language of photography became more subjective than ever.
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
Upon the new digital platform photography was more about creating more than
revealing things. As such we cannot tell what has been depicted from reality, from
what was been manipulated, created or added on the image. People can do whatever
they want with an image now. The digital transformed photography from film to data,
from grains to pixels, thousands of pixels. Every pixel on a picture can be modified
individually or altogether at the same time hence the picture is no longer necessarily
real and representational. The image can be constructed out of context and made
to fit in any situation. Alternative to analogue there is no original that deteriorates
over time. Without the notion of the original, the idea of authorship is lost here and
leads to the question: who is the author? Is it the person who takes the picture or
the one who manipulates it?
Digital photography and softwares have developed to such a level that it now means
that manipulation of photographs is easier and more seamless than ever before. This
is primarily because to capture and to change an image can be done with the same
technology. Due to this cohesion of processes the considered opinion of photography
as reality is no longer tenable. For what digital photography allows through its
apparent seamlessness is that the line between fact and fiction can become blurred.
The effect of the new digital ambiguity is that to the fact and fiction dichotomy we
must add a third remit, fact-fiction photography. Therefore, advancements in
photographic production require a correlating advancement in photographic reading.
Focusing specifically on photographic portraiture we can see that manipulation alters
the reading in many ways. This change in photography is part of a larger scale
identity digitalization.
2.4 Perception/reading with photography
The images chase us all the time through the media (TV, newspaper, magazine and
internet); even when we are with our eyes closed we see images. Actually, we think
in images. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that we do not know how to read
images. Not decoding what we see means we are visually illiterate. The issue is not
in the picture or the tools used to produce it but in what we absorb from it. It does
not matter if an image is digital or analogue, if is computer generated or constructed,
they all come to us as photographs. We look at them and read them as photographs,
a copy, the register of our past (memories) and our present (reality). It was used as
medical, criminal, social and political evidence.
Digital photography is not only about memory and a register medium anymore. All
the social, political and cultural contexts affect the way we see photography
nowadays. We live in a world of signs. The signs are encoded with meanings to be
interpreted, decoded by the viewers. Photography became part of our everyday life;
we record every event of our day. The subject is approached through different ways.
What drastically changed the form we perceived photographs from analogue
photography to digital photography is how the photographs are displayed,
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
distributed. They are rarely visualized as photographs prints on an album but they
are all on the Internet now in photoblogs like Instagram (free social network for
sharing photos and videos). What makes the photograph vulnerable for any
inappropriate use as everything that is displayed on the Internet is difficult to control
due to its wide area of operation and the possibility of using a false identity.
One more drastic change is how everyone can easily manipulate the digital
photographs comparing with analogue photographs. The editing software to
manipulate images can be bought by anyone on the Internet including a guide on
how to use it. Then the beauty tricks are not restricted only to magazines. The
consequence of this is that the pictures can be manipulated without living any trace
losing its original characteristic. That is the reason when we read a picture we have
to go beyond historical, memory facts and emotional response. It is necessary to go
further, all those elements quoted above that represent the way we got used to read
photographs (before digital). Photography impacts people in particular means
according to their background and the context where the photograph will be
interpreted. The understanding of photography also affects it. The reading of a
photograph is also influenced by the context in which the image was produced and
distributed, who is going to see it and when it is going to be seen. At the same time
the control of time and space and who and how this information will be accessed is
lost.
An example of how digital and manipulated image change the understanding of
photograph is the work of the Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura. He works
basically with photographic self-portraits based on art history masterpieces. But he
gives his own interpretations to them, sometimes including items from his oriental
culture. Morimura intends to question the taboos surrounding masculinity,
femininity, essentialism and the appropriation of historical works. In the series
Daughter of Art History (Morimura, 2003) inserts his face into famous artworks of
Masters of Arts like Goya, Rembrandt, etc. To reproduce these paintings digitally in
the same scale Morimura had to look for the appropriate costumes, recreating the
settings and make up.
On the picture 2 we see a realist painting from the seventeenth century called Girl
with a Pearl Earring (c. 1665) by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675).
This is a portrait of a young girl about thirteen-years-old probably from lower class
due to her simple vestment from that time. She has expressive eyes looking at the
spectator; the mouth is a little bit open as she was about to say something.
Now the picture 3 is a work of Yasumasa Morimura that is part of the series Daughter
of Art History (2003) and it represents a rereading of Girl with a Pearl Earring. This
picture offers us two possibilities of reading. The first one is the original painting and
comparing with this one we can note the manipulation because of the difference of
the facial characteristics. The second one, if we did not know the original painting we
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
will question whether is a girl or a boy and the identity of the person portrayed as
she carries oriental features on her face but she wears Western attire. The age of
the girl is also a mystery since it possesses some marks on the face of someone
older.
Picture 2: Johannes Vermeer - Girl with a Pearl
Earring (c. 1665). Painting.
Source: The Frick Collection (online gallery):
https://goo.gl/mVVAlF
Picture 3: Yasumasa Morimura - Daughter of Art
History (2003). Manipulated digital photograph.
Source: Luhring Augustine (online gallery):
https://goo.gl/rKSY6L
The point is how to deal with the invisible, inexistent subject when the thing or person
photographed is not the final product, when it is created through an interface. The
contemporary photographic practice deals more with the imagination than the facts,
the physical, and the presence. Photography may not be a reliable source but it is
not possible to deny that it is a result, a consequence of the world outside the
camera. Photography is more than a way to express ideas and feelings; it has been
seen as a tool to understand, to think, to reflect about everything around us, our
lives.
The communicative power of photography is huge due to its widespread popularity.
It can reach everybody, everywhere thanks to the development and cheapening of
its technology and the scope of the image produced depends on the ability of the
imagination of the receiver. The capability of the digital photography to provide us
with images close to reality is enormous, and then we are asked to believe that is
faithful and do not contest or problematize it. That is the reason why only a
photograph is not enough to say that it is a documentary or not, it is necessary to
investigate the nature of the picture.
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
The camera was responsible to reaffirm a cultural and social pattern that is why its
veracity was accepted, especially during the nineteenth century. The documentary is
basically the power of the relationship between the photographer and the subject.
These photographs are constructed to provoke a desired response. This kind of
attitude comes to prove how photography masquerades itself as an objective science.
Visual literacy is so important nowadays, since we are bombarded by images all the
time, and our children are educated through them. How to deal with the production
and consumption of images: learning to read, understanding and valuing what you
see. The digital photography changed the way we were used to see and deal with
photography until now. It is responsible to build a contemporary photography
aesthetic.
3 Photography and the construction of identity
The Russian psychologist, Lev Simkhovich Vygotsky (1896-1934) has a concept of
identity that fits here, for him, identity is not something determined as soon as we
are born, but is something built through individual experiences along our lives.
Another concept of identity that could be related with the previous one is given by
the Bulgarian-French feminist philosopher Julia Kristeva (1984). She says that
identity is formed in the encounter with others. It means that our identity is
expressed when is confronted with other peoples’ identity, as the differences
between them are evidenced. The exchange of experiences between two people
directs to the recognition of the self. The contact with our outside gives us the
awareness of our existence. The awareness of not been the same and of the diverse,
complex essence of the human being.
Identity is constructed as time goes by impacting our bodies and encompasses our
gender, ethnicity, age and personality. It defines who we are. This is relevant to this
paper because photography and technology advancements have changed the way
we construct and perceive identity. Photography offers the encounter with the
identity, the subjectivity through the image of the self. Through photography we
want to reaffirm our identity. Because the identity is not something fixed but is a
continuum finding of ourselves, expressly in a world where the communication is
increasingly becoming more virtual and global. We must continually being feeding
our sense of identity and of cultural belonging. The identity means the way people
understand themselves, their subjectivity in comparison with others. It is self-
awareness related to the world. But it changes with every encounter as a sign of the
transformation of the construction of the self. This construction can be played
through the photograph portrait and the experience of reading the subject. The
identity is reconstructed every time the portrait image reaches the viewer. Each
person will interpret those images in a different way as they affect people according
with their socio-cultural background and the context where they are seen. Therefore,
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
the picture can have multiple meanings and each time the viewer sees it, he/she can
add other meanings.
The issue discussed above is strongly related to semiotic concepts founded by
Charles Pierce and Saussure, especially when image significations are involved.
Semiotics (or semiology), the idea of a science of signs, originates
from comments in Ferdinand de Saussure’s General Theory of
Linguistics (1916) but was not further developed until after the
Second World War. Essentially, semiotics proposed the systematic
analysis of cultural behaviour. At its extremes it aimed at
establishing an empirically verifiable method of analysis of human
communication systems. Thus, codes of dress, music, advertising –
and other forms of communication – are conceptualised as logical
systems. The focus is upon clues which together constitute a text
ready for reading and interpretation. American semiotician, C. S.
Peirce, further distinguished between iconic, indexical and symbolic
codes. Iconic codes are based upon resemblance, for instance, a
picture of someone or something; indexical codes are effects with
specific causes, for example, footprints indicate human presence;
symbolic codes are arbitrary, for instance, there is no necessary link
between the sound of a word that to which it refers” (Price and
Wells, 2015, p. 36).
To better exemplify, analyzing a photograph an image represents the signifier when
the person who sees it adds a meaning to it, which is called signified. Signifier and
signified composes a sign. A sign is an image full of signification. However, the sign
is produced through social, historical and cultural contexts. It is people’s
interpretation that gives meaning to the signs. It is worth bringing the French
philosopher and writer Roland Barthes (1915-1980) into this discussion through his
book The Death of the Author when he questions the position of the artist in his/her
work. He says that the author is no longer there, the most important thing is who is
going to read the book, the person who is going to give life to the story is the person
who says “I” (Barthes, 1967, p. 3).
From there we can discuss about a revolutionizing effect of digital photography on
the construction of identities through blogs and photoblogs by a new generation of
users. People store and show their life through pictures published on these blogs
(like Instagram and Twitter) updated all the time by the Internet. It is a means to
communicate their cultural and social identity and keep family memories. Old dusty
family albums were left a little aside to make way for fast communication and
technology of the blogs. Now it is not only our family members that will see the
albums and know about our routine but everybody in the world that could be
interested in access the blog, so there is a lack of control over the own image.
Therefore, it revolutionized the way people have come to establish the relationships
and communication between them. The borders have become less evident and digital
cameras became mediators of personal relationships. That is the reason why his new
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
technologies became so popular in a short period of time, specially the manipulation
tool that gave people the opportunity to portray a better self. Nowadays people have
a private and a public identity due to this new technology, cultural and social
conditions.
When considering the effect of photographic digital manipulations on identity the
work of Loretta Lux makes herself visible. Lux is a German-born painter that turned
into a photographer focusing on portraits. Her main subjects are children and the
first word that comes to our mind when we look at the photographs is ‘weird’. Are
those kids and scenes real? These photographs must be manipulated! They look like
a bit dark and intriguing paintings.
Actually, Lux manipulates the pictures and she does not want to hide it, because this
is a creative tool for her. The children are inserted into the setting that was previously
painted and scanned. The outfit is quite old fashionable and the children seem to
have adult’s expressions. Loreta Lux tries to build another aesthetic for the
contemporary photography. To understand this new aesthetic as an effect of the
digital manipulation is necessary a more clinical reading.
Picture 4: Loretta Lux – ‘Hidden rooms’ 2, 2001. Manipulated
digital photograph.
Source: Loretta Lux: works II (digital portfolio):
http://www.lorettalux.de/images/hid2120.jpg
Taking the image 4, the viewer is presented with a female child standing in the corner
of a room. The pose of the child suggests that she feels timid and discomfortable.
Her left arm crosses her body protectively, one could read that she is caressing or
hold herself in security. Her legs pressed together stresses the timid nature of the
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
child by suggesting a rigid body, one that appears discomforted by whatever it maybe
that her fixed stare will not let her avoid. It is as if the girl appears rooted to the
spot, pinned down by an oppressor, in a room that does little to add peace to the
image. The room appears desolate and abandoned, the walls and floorboards appear
rough and unfinished thus seeming to concur with the loneliness and vulnerability of
its occupant.
Further manipulation is also visible within the stare. The eyes appear polished and
glass like, and in coupling this with the manufactured pale porcelain like skin, the girl
is now to be perceived in all coldness. Through digitalisation the stare is transposed
from that of vulnerability or fear to a cold hard stare that would appear full of intent
and domination towards its subject. Herein too according to this reading the room
itself is transfigured; provoked by the observable cold intent of the child, the room
in which she stands of bare walls and floorboards is no longer a scene of
susceptibility, it has now become similar to the set of a horror movie. Alternatively
one could say vulnerability has now been passed from the viewed to the viewer.
Through digitalisation what would at first appear to be an index of reality is moved
to a place of the uncanny. That is to say that one tries to read the image as
photography however one is never allowed to settle peaceful with this mode of
reading, they are forever fluctuating between the disparity of reality and
representation. Due to the subtlety of the work the reading is irritating and highlights
the necessity to reconfigure the mode of reading for digital images and as to how
the modifications of the body can drastically alter the identity within a portrait.
Conclusion
Digital Photography is increasingly related to issues on a daily basis, like the loss of
individuality, the reproducibility of objects and the indiscriminate access to
information resulting from globalization, and especially the gradual loss of identity in
routine activities, such as going to the bank, driving, speeding down the street
without noticing the space in which it occurs nor the people who are passing by. To
make people reflect about their individuality as opposed to society. The clash
between subjectivity and identity. Besides ethical issues we have to take into account
principles and cultural values that change over time and place. We still have to learn
how to differentiate taste from ethics; things cannot be deemed unethical just
because we dislike them. Culture greatly impacts taste. Who sets the limits of
manipulation?
The manipulation of images in digital photography in art or not always generates
discussions. They can address a variety of issues about life, culture, society etc.
These manipulations on the image motivate social change, as the average citizen is
not in full readiness to distinguish whether digital photography is manipulated or not.
All it is due to the impossibility of depicting reality because photography is not more
SILVA, Patrícia Amorim da
Fiction and reality in the construction of gender identities in the human portrait digital photography
BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Revista Photo & Documento
— ISSN 2448-1947
No. 2, 2016; section “Original articles”
preserving a moment but changing it or even creating it. The advertising and/or art
digital photography is representing the world symbolically. There is no image that is
not manipulated if we consider that photography works from the point of view of
someone else. As any other art, photography is not impartial. Picture manipulation
has become a graphic expression left by artists on their photograph and has
transformed the human body through different perspectives, there is an
objectification of this body as a result of the various manipulations exerted on it.
The currently digital photography problem is how it reaches people instantly and
abundantly; people pay less and less attention to reading it. People have forgotten
to look at the world and when they see it without the photographic apparatus they
feel lost, because they feel an urge to register everything around them, they also
became used to look through a window, the display of the camera. Unlike writing,
that requires understanding grammar rules, to photograph you simply push a button.
The amateur photographer believes that photography comes down to this automatic
gesture. Contemporary photography does not intend to show the reality, but to build
different meanings. The photographers do not want to stay at the surface of the
picture but to explore a metaphorical world of meanings. Photographers are more
interested in making us feel than see things as they actually are.
The digital photography came to overcome the limits previously established as a
means of communication and create new forms of composition.
References
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http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen5and6/threeEssays.html#barthes
Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. Paris: Gallimard.
Kristeva, J. (1984). Revolution in poetic language. New York: Columbia University
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Price, D. & Wells, L. (2015). Thinking about photography: debates, historically, and
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Pultz, J. (1995). Photography and the body. London: Everyman Art Library.