Chester Higgins
[Photographer, b. 1946, Lexington, Kentucky, lives in Brooklyn, New York.]
I learned that the camera never lies about the photographer.
David LaChapelle
[Photographer, b. 1968, Connecticut, lives in New York.]
People say photos don’t lie. Mine do. I make mine lie.
Judith Butler
[Philosopher and theorist, b. 1956, Cleveland, Ohio, lives in Berkeley, California.]
The critical image... must not only fail to capture its referent, but show its failure.
W.H. Auden
[Poet and writer, b. 1907, York, North Yorkshire, England, d. 1973, Vienna, Austria.]
The steady eyes of the crow and the camera’s candid eye
See as honestly as they know how, but they lie.
See as honestly as they know how, but they lie.
Auguste Rodin
[Artist, b. 1840, Paris, France, d. 1917, Paris.]
It is the artist who is truthful and photography which lies, for in reality time does not stop, and if the artist succeeds in producing the impression of a movement which takes several moments for accomplishment, his work is certainly much less conventional than the scientific image, where time is abruptly suspended.
Thomas Struth
[Photographer, b. 1954, Geldern, Germany, lives in Dusseldorf.]
In certain cases, I asked people to stay fixed in their position, but the effect was already lost. Those photographs don’t work, because photography is so sensitive a medium that one can’t lie using it. (On his “Museum Photographs”)
Terence Donovan
[Photographer, b. 1936, Stepney, England, d. 1996, London.]
The magic of photography is metaphysical. What you see in the photograph isn’t what you saw at the time. The real skill of photography is organised visual lying.
Martha Rosler
[Artist, b. 1943, Brooklyn, New York, lives in New York.]
The question at hand is the danger posed to truth by computer-manipulated photographic imagery. How do we approach this question in a period in which the veracity of even the straight, unmanipulated photograph has been under attack for a couple of decades.