Photographs claim documentary truth but always embed their makers’ assumptions

Evidence

“The photograph appears to have a more easy access to the truth,” commented Stuart. “The ‘being-there-ness’ of the photograph gives it this quality, and yet, the photographs can’t deliver the whole truth. The truth moves on them and the truth moves on us.” The images also contain the concerns and priorities of the white photographers who took them. For this reason, reading the photographs involves animating them and noticing other things within their depth of field. This Stuart refers to as their “incidental documentary features.” “Putting black people in the frame is not just a figural practice. It is what is going on around the figure being photographed and the situation in which it is placed, even though the photographer is not really focusing on these aspects. In these photographs the body language, for example, is extremely eloquent.” — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1049

Categorization

• DEFINE: Hall’s ‘incidental documentary features’ names a reading method: animating photographs to surface what sits outside the photographer’s intended focus — a transferable analytic tool.
• XREF: Connects to representation and the construction of the ‘Other’ — the photograph as a site where racialized subjects are ‘put in the frame’ while white photographers’ concerns set the terms. — connects to: Photography itself actively alters the world it records, not just passively captures it. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1395; Adding a photo raises the judged truth of any accompanying claim — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 85; Images make factual claims more fluently processable and believable — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 105 (+2 more)
• SEED: Potential essay angle: how the ‘incidental documentary features’ method applies to news photographs of Muslims/Western coverage of Islam — reading what sits outside the intended frame.