I found an article on ‘The Independent’ website written by Susannah Frankel. She wrote about the controversial fashion photographer Nick Knight. This article discusses issues relating to my area of research into manipulation of an image and in particular within portraiture.
She quotes from his book called ‘Nick Knight’ and written by himself. With regard to manipulation of the truth within photography he states
"Where do you start? When Roger Fenton went out to the Crimean War to show the reality of the battlefields, he ended up dragging around the corpses to make a better composition. Originally, photography was seen as a better recorder of truth than painting – that's why it became popular. It's taken us 100 years to realise that actually that is not the case and neither should we want it to be. Photographers aren't machines that have no feelings and no opinions, they're storytellers; they manipulate the reality in front of them to tell you something interesting about it – and that holds true of everyone from Diane Arbus to Helmut Newton. That's why we keep looking at their work. The whole idea that photographers today are a bunch of deviant misfits producing pictures of people that somehow twist the truth in a malevolent way is ridiculous. Which camera you choose, which lens you choose, which lighting you choose, which angle you choose to shoot a subject from – all these things are crucial to the way that subject will ultimately be perceived."
Frankel then states ‘The birth of digital photography and the power of Photoshop image manipulation in particular have only fuelled the public's suspicions where any so-called distortion of reality is concerned. "But it's just a way of having more control," Knight argues, "and a lot more possibilities. It's a way of exploring the parameters within an image which is extremely exciting."’
I found this article to be one of the few written positively and arguing the case for manipulation. Photographers as artists do not always deserve the criticism thrown at them for enhancing or beautifying. I am convinced that artists through the centuries have never forsaken their right to tweak or adjust their creations for a more aesthetically beautiful piece.
This study of Nick Knight in no way labels him as an artist only seeking idealised forms to work with. In the 1990’s he photographed Sophie Dahl a model who was distinct due to her figure size in comparison with her extremely thin counterparts of her time. Through his use of selected lighting, camera equipment and digital manipulation he emulated the size 14 figure allowing us, the viewer, to see her looking her best and not discriminating what would, in a ‘media’ context, be deemed unacceptable.
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