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Who
first claimed "the camera does not lie?" The
origins of that old bromide are obscure, but by
1859 - twenty years after the invention of
photography - a similar phrase was used in a
drama by the American actor and playwright Dion
Boucicault.
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In
The Octoroon, an unattended camera magically takes
and self-develops a photograph that reveals the identity
of a child-killer and stops the lynching of a
falsely-accused Native American:
Samuel
Scudder. A photographic plate. (Pete holds lantern
up.) What' s this, eh? Two forms! The child--'tis he!
Dead--and above him--Ah! ah! Jacob M'Closky, 'twas you
murdered that boy!
M'Closky.
Me?
Scudder.
You! You slew him with that tomahawk; and as you
stood over his body with the letter in your hand, you
thought that no witness saw the deed, that no eye was
on you--but there was, Jacob M'Closky, there was. The
eye of the Eternal was on you--the blessed sun in
heaven, that, looking down, struck upon this plate the
image of the deed. Here you are, in the very attitude
of your crime!
M'Closky.
'Tis false!
Scudder.
'Tis true! The apparatus can't lie. Look there,
jurymen. (Shows plate to jury.) Look there. Oh, you
wanted evidence--you called for proof--Heaven has
answered and convicted you.
The
idea that photographs embody a perfect form of truth -
perhaps even a divine form of truth - gained currency
during the first months following the public announcement
of photography by Louis J. M. Daguerre. In a valiant
effort to explain photographs to a readership that had
never seen any, journalists often compared the earliest
camera images (called "daguerreotypes") to paintings.
Edgar Allan Poe reported
….
in truth, the Daguerreotyped plate is infinitely (we
use the term advisedly) is infinitely more accurate in
its representation than any painting by human hands.
If we examine a work of ordinary art, by means of a
powerful microscope, all traces of resemblance to
nature will disappear - but the closest scrutiny of
the photogenic drawing discloses only a more absolute
truth, a more perfect identity of aspect with the
thing represented. The variations of shade, and the
gradations of both linear and aerial perspective are
those of truth itself in the supremeness of its
perfection.
Even
before the details of Daguerre's process became known,
writers were speculating on the implications of
photography's ability to record the literal truth. In
April of 1839 The New Yorker asked, "What would
you say to looking in the mirror and having the image
fastened!! As one looks sometimes, it is really quite
frightful to think of it; but such a thing is possible -
nay, it is probable - no, it is certain. What will become
of the poor thieves, when they shall see handed in as
evidence against them their own portraits, taken by the
room in which they stole, and in the very act of
stealing! What wonderful discoveries is this wonderful
discovery destined to discover!"
It
would be many decades before the crime-fighting
properties of photography envisioned by The New
Yorker (and later by Dion Boucicault) would become
technically feasible. However, photographs would soon be
fighting crime in other ways -- as courtroom evidence. In
that capacity, the medium's claims to being unerring and
perfect in its truthfulness would become highly
controversial.
"The
camera does not lie" is a corollary to a concept that
predates photography: "Seeing is believing." The origins
of this expression are also obscure, but two thousand
years ago the Roman poet Horace offered a similar
sentiment in his letter on The Art of Poetry
:
- What
we hear,
- With
weaker passion will affect the heart,
- Than
when the faithful eye beholds the part.
- (Segnius
irritant animos demissa per aures,
- Quam
quæ sunt oculis subjecta
fidelibus.)
If
"seeing is believing" and "the camera does not lie" are
both perfectly accurate, it would follow that the camera
should be the most faithful witness possible. Even so,
judges in the United States and Britain spent years
wrestling with the admissibility of photographs as
evidence.
With
the possible exception of nihilistic experiments
performed in the name of Art, every photograph is taken
for a purpose. Most often, that purpose is the creation
of documentation. When photography was brand-new, people
rushed to daguerreotype galleries to have family
portraits made, documenting appearances (and, indirectly,
relationships.) Within a few years, photography was being
utilized to document events of international importance,
such as the California Gold Rush or the Crimean War. By
the time of the U.S. Civil War, which was recorded by
teams of photographers in the employ of Mathew Brady and
others, photojournalism was an established practice.
The
public accepted photographs as literal truth, and so did
the courts-- for purposes of identification and the
comparison of handwriting. One scholar, writing in The
American Law Register in 1869 noted
We
know that the photograph is not the work, in any
respect affecting its truthfulness, of a human brain,
but of natural forces, which, experience teaches,
generally speak the truth without flattery or
detraction. If I am correct in this, a photograph,
proved to be that of a person absent is that person
himself, precisely as he exists in the article of
vision-is, therefore, direct and original evidence of
the kind of man he was. So, of the photographic
likeness of any natural object or place.
Photographers,
however, knew better. They understood that their art was
not always unimpeachable, and that the choice of lens,
camera angle, even the time of day that a picture was
made could all have an impact on the final image. One
such case in 1886 involved a dispute between two persons
about a wall. The plaintiff charged his neighbor's wall
was too high and obstructed the sunlight. The judge
seemed to be swayed by a photograph showing the wall to
be immense and casting a dark and gloomy curtain of
shadow, as charged. But then the defendant's lawyer, with
a smile, handed the judge a photograph of the same scene.
This time, the judge was confronted with a picture that
seemed to show a tiny, insignificant wall that could not
possibly cause any harm. Both law journals and the
photographic press noted this case. The Photographic
News acidly reported how one of the attorneys
discovered from a colleague that photographs could be
skewed to present a particular perspective: "In a close
conversation of some fifteen minutes, which followed, the
solicitor learned what he did not know before, he learned
that the photograph may be made to speak for this or for
that, according as the finger of mammon does point."
If
the purity of photographic truth could be so easily
corrupted, what of the ancient claim that "seeing is
believing"?
In
the 1890s a new school of thought emerged in the field of
Psychology. Called "Gestalt," its adherents studied the
mechanisms of perception through optical illusions. These
simple diagrams and drawings provide a window into the
workings of the mind; we may know that the horizontal
lines in a diagram are straight, because we've just
investigated with a ruler, but our minds insist on
perceiving the lines as curved.
Optical
illusions teach an important lesson, because they
convincingly demonstrate that seeing isn't always
believing. And in the same way, manipulated "trick
photographs" provide incontrovertible proof that the
camera can be taught to lie. We find many of these images
compelling for the same reasons that we can watch a good
magician perform the same act many times over: the
magician uses his talent to momentarily convince us of
things we know are impossible-- and so do the best trick
photographs. The source of our fascination is the
experience of having our own brains fall victim to what
we know to be an illusion. We fool ourselves, delight in
our own gullibility, and marvel at the magic.
Wm.
B. Becker
