Eddie Adams
[Photojournalist, b. 1933, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, d. 2004, New York.]
People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths.
Henry Peach Robinson
[Photographer, b. 1830, Ludlow, Shropshire, England, d. 1901, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England.]
It must be confessed that it takes considerable skill to produce the best kind of lies. It is in the hands of first-class photographers only—and perhaps the indifferent ones—that photography can lie.
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.
Eleanor Antin
[Artist, b. 1935, New York, lives in San Diego, California.]
I adore [photography’s] uneasy mix of fact and fiction—its dubious claim to truth—its status as history.
Taryn Simon
[Photographer, b. 1975, New York, lives in New York.]
Photography’s ability to blur truth and fiction is one of its most compelling qualities. But when misused... this ambiguity can have severe, even lethal consequences.... Photography’s ambiguity, beautiful in one context, can be devastating in another.
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
[Writer, b. 1903, Motihari, Bengal, India, d. 1950, London.]
Processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxwork displays, film shows, telescreen programs all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs faked.
James Agee
[Writer, b. 1909, Knoxville, Tennessee, d. 1955, New York.]
It is clear enough by now to most people that “the camera never lies” is a foolish saying. Yet it is doubtful whether most people realize how extraordinarily slippery a liar the camera is.
Franz Kafka
[Writer, b. 1883, Prague, d. 1924, Prague.]
Nothing is as deceptive as a photograph.
