Frames Per Second vs. Authenticity
Some “streaming” filming of the horrific scene, The Terror of War:
The contact sheet strip of the still camera negatives, unedited, from the scene:
The edited (i.e., reframed) “print” (published) version of the image:
Editorially and compositionally, this version of the scene gets a grip on us because the young girls frontality and empty hands say, as body language, that her vulnerability is Innocence, and it makes us the party she is addressing. Further, the cropping of the image puts us “in” the foreground, again making us the party she is addressing. This is the added dimension to what is otherwise the same “facts” visible in the film and in the other still frames.
The point is that, being completely frank about all of it, this famous image was merely beginning to develop when the image was initially captured in negative. That part is the only part that the photographer — this time — takes full responsibility for. This famous image was completed by separate photo editor(s). As far as giving an audience a credited party for the final image, the editor may as well have been the photographer on the scene.
This point is not at all a departure from what is normal in photography. Namely, the shooter is as likely as not to be the first and final editor. That depends on the requirements of the channel used to distribute the image.
Compositional rigor here is largely a disciplinary requirement due to the limitations of timing, transience, and point of view. The more options those elements of opportunity have, the less likely a heroic first-and-only effort is necessary to the viewer. (Ask any film or stage director!) The compositional competency is a fusion of what the photo gear allows and what the circumstances allow. The competency is neither necessarily momentary nor linear in its completion of its task. Whoever is the editor, their control of visual language is accountable for the meaning expressed within the boundaries of the view and the boundaries of the instrument
A photographer shooting again and again during an event is arguably “journaling” it as soon as the hint of a story occurs in the photographer’s mind as the motivator for shooting. From that point forward, the main issue is whether the “story” is fiction or non-fiction. And subsequent to that point, the main issue is mastery of visual language.
Photography is NOT inherently journalistic. What makes photography journalistic is the commitment of its practice to a set of principles and standards that define journalism, not that define photography.
What is unavoidable is that an intentional photograph is always essentially a fabrication. But it is a fabrication with an objective. Being fabricated does not mean that it is not faithful to the realities of the viewed scene. It simply means that it re-presents, selectively. And the photographer initially controls the selection. The notion of photojournalism being authentic is not based in photography. Photography is a medium; authenticity is in the correspondence of the photographic presentation to the verifiable conditions of the subject. The medium conveys the correspondence.
Spread across the lifecycle stages of identification, selection, arrangement, contextualization, and presentation, photographic craftwork and the journalistic mission can each contribute something at each stage. Where there are expectations of the practice, it is important to distinguish between what is habitual for any reason versus what is actually inherent in the exercise. This applies regardless of how fast the full lifecycle is progressed.
