Wedding Spin: Or Why You Shouldn’t Believe Everything You Read On The Internet
Stephen, Amazon and Irem
Look at this group. It was taken by one of the professional photographers hired to photograph Meltem and Ali Abi’s wedding. Our family seems close, relaxed and comfortable. It’s not obvious that outside of the tent rain is descending in torrents, and the roof is in danger of collapsing soaking us all!
No matter our immediate, or personal circumstances we have been conditioned to dutifully pose whenever a photographer with a half decent camera and an imposing flashgun appears before us. We become as passive as patients in dentist’s chairs when doing the photographer’s bidding. We trust that the operation will be successful.
The photographer has done a half decent job. Glasses on the table clutter the foreground, and the handle of my umbrella is just visible above the table top. As this is supposed to be a formal study these elements are not acceptable.
Which picture tells the truth, the one above, or the ones of the troubled people in yesterdays post?
The answer is neither, for just as yesterday’s photographs were placed to illustrate the story of the problems at the wedding, had I chosen to write a brighter account then I could have used pictures of people enjoying themselves.
The weather was bad, yes – but nevertheless most people made the best of it and had a good time. But you would not have known this from my previous account. Same event, different emphasis!
Will I show you some photographs of people having fun at the wedding in the future? You can bet on it.
Salesmanship is like this. The aim is to always tell the truth attractively. Popular reportage frequently aims to do the opposite. It aims to shock, disturb, horrify and selectively edit. I wrote about this a day or so ago. True reportage of course simply attempts to report events objectively.
The great British pictorial magazine “Picture Post‘ came to a premature end because its owner attempted to interfere with objective editorial photography during the war in Korea. I neither condone sensationalism, nor sugar coating unpalatable truths. Nevertheless, as the simple story of this wedding illustrates, objectivity isn’t always so easily achieved, for until some consensus is reached there will be at least as many stories of this wedding as the number of guests who attended.
Once the consensus is reached however, now that’s another story!
