By Daryl Lang PDNPulse.com"Before they received their trophy and €5,000 (£4,260) cheque at a ceremony on Wednesday, the prize-winners, Guillaume Chauvin and Rémi Hubert, read out a statement admitting to the hoax, stating that they had wanted to make a 'powerful artistic gesture' attacking the 'voyeurism' and gullibility of parts of the press. The prize jury looked crestfallen but managed to applaud all the same."
Needless to say this stunt is an embarrassment for Paris Match and its contest judges. The British Journal of Photography notes that Paris Match withdrew the prize and published a note to readers saying the images had been faked.
What's interesting about this project is the images by themselves communicate no facts, only feelings. When the photos are labeled as genuine and tied to a social concern—in this case, student poverty—they become important and affecting. We wonder if the students could have made this point without resorting to lying.
1 comments:
There are going to be a lot of strong opinions on this subject. Ethics, will be called into question as well as awards and photo contests at large.
My opinion, is that this is something that needed to be done. By following one idea and with one announcement the photographers in question were able to shine an international spotlight on a situation that needed to be addressed, regardless of how it was captured. As well as a light on those who are supposedly the benchmark for what is good and bad along with right and wrong in photography today.
Is staging photographs wrong, ... well in some cases no. This was a contest, there was prize money and if they didn't declare it was staged it would be wrong. But they did say it was wrong, they admitted what they did wrong and proved how the integrity of the contest was in doubt, but raised awareness of a subject that was not getting nearly enough attention.
As a photographer, you stage photographs all the time whether it be in your mind or right in front of you. They had no obligations or ethics to follow other then their own in this case. If this were to be a report with journalistic properties for a publication, yeah this was wrong. No doubt about it. You report the truth, you don't stage the truth to get points across. This contest on the other hand, was artistic expression and interpretation. They did that, and they did it well.
Post a Comment