AT ITS inception in the 1830s, the photograph was regarded "the pencil of nature". Photographic images wereperceived as direct and unmediated transcriptions of reality. Those were the halcyon days of positivism --they placed a premium on facts that could be observed, quantified, and "proven" over interpretation.Photography in conjunction with the other discoveries in optics, took the probing eye of science further.
But mere presentation of facts is not unspoilt by political agendas. This is true of the sciences and alsothe visual arts. As photography began to participate in anthropology, portraiture, war, social reform,pornography, art and a plethora of other discourses, practitioners started to question its supposed objectivityand transparent truthfulness. The photograph could be manipulated as any other form of representation.
But in general perception the visual image always conveyed -- and still does so -- a completeness.A misleadingcompleteness, one might say, but it is often used as a surrogate for detailed explanation. In photography'searly days, cultural anthropologists used it to suggest a knowledge that the discipline itself could notconvey. With anthropology and photography operating together, a seamless, ahistorical view of the subjectbecame the currency. In the process, all marks of the photographer/anthropologist's culture were sought tobe effaced. The famous early photographs of tribals in their "innocent" state were taken after the communitieswere ravaged by the process of colonialism.
Much the same holds for travel writing. The travellers of the 18th and 19th centuries often foundbeauty, richness, or ugliness, disorder and banality according to their disposition. The idea again was to conveya completeness. The pervasive exoticism hangs in front of the reader as an objective truth. This is whatthe anthropologist Mary Louise Pratt calls "The King-of-all-I" attitude.
In modern times, television channels have become purveyors of this state-of-affairs. Today, in the age ofdigital imaging, when computer games mimic real wars, it might be hard for even the most naive pair of eyesto easily believe what it sees. But unfortunately television casts enormous sway on perception, and digitisationhas in fact aided it. We only know of the images that are beamed to us; think of 'embedded journalism',not the circumstances in which they were. We believe in them, even though they might be contrived. Images can give the false sense of veracity that being there pretends to