What can a photograph say?

Coming from classes where no one seemed interested in critically discussing issues with photographing other people, with photographing and claims of truth or knowledge, I’d been feeling very alone and strange— is it expected that photographers believe in some sort of core truth that can be gotten at with a camera? Or at least that there is in fact something that can be shown/learned by photographing and looking at photographs? I wasn’t sure how I felt. Then, as if someone somewhere heard my internal monologue, I was delivered two interviews/articles that gave me some great things to think about: Jorg Colberg’s interview with Alec Soth and a Guardian article about Pieter Hugo’s work.

Pieter Hugo: “I have a deep suspicion of photography, to the point where I do sometimes think it cannot accurately portray anything, really. And, I particularly distrust portrait photography. I mean, do you honestly think a portrait can tell you anything about the subject? And, even if it did, would you trust what it had to say?”

Alec Soth: “Photographing people, with or without permission, usually leads to all sorts of ethical dilemmas. It is unavoidable. I do my best to be good. I ask permission. I’m honest about how I use the pictures and send everyone I photograph a print. But the truth is that when I take a picture of a person I am ‘using’ that person. They are becoming material for my work and I’m turning them into an object, a piece of paper that is a commodity. It is all troubling. All I can say is that on the long list of ethical crimes a misdemeanors, photographing people in the name of art isn’t the worst violation.”

These quotes hit me hard right now because I’m trying to move on to shooting other people more, something I’d for the most part avoided but something I had always appreciated and envied about other people’s work. It takes a certain amount of guts and confidence to photograph others, but also a way of seeing things that lets you feel ok about using them, about making them into an art object. I fear that I am not that type of person, or that I cannot become that person. If photographing another person is a sort of one-sided exchange, and if that photograph doesn’t say anything about the subject, what incentive does a person have to consent to having their portrait taken? This is the question that nags at me. I wonder what I have to offer to others when asking to take their picture. Currently, I offer cookies, but are some oatmeal coconut chocolate chip cookies a fair trade?

Pieter Hugo: “It sounds extreme, but for me to work at all as a photographer, I have to be conscious always of the problems inherent in what I do. I have to be conscious, if you like, of the impossibility of photography.”

This is so important, always being aware of the limitations of your medium, but how do you avoid letting this paralyze you? How do you put it enough aside to keep making your work and feel like there is some meaning in what you do?

I started writing this post feeling like I had so much to say but have ended it with more questions than answers. I keep thinking about the question “what can a photograph say?” and I don’t know, but maybe that’s part of why I keep shooting— I’m searching for clues in each image about what I can learn, if anything, about other people, the world around me, and myself.