Study Task 4

Proto-Question - How does photography and drawing differ in regard to visual journalism and reportage work?

I have found out that there is a difference between the two processes of image making, which highly influences the resulting outcomes and how they are then read by an audience. They both have unique characteristics in the way they are produced, altering the possibilities and limitations of each. For example, with photography there is the decisive moment, which is often a fraction of a second where the image is captured by the camera, whereas with drawing there is not one moment that the image is captured in as drawing takes longer than pressing a shutter. This moment therefore is waited on by both photographer and artist, but the photograph is an instantaneous and immediate reaction, and the drawing is a slow one. Drawing is also more of an interpretation of the moment, influenced greatly by the hand of the maker, where the photograph is often more believed to be a true to life depiction, with less choices and influencing factors involved. Yet they are still both processes of choice, so each is entirely dependent on the creator of the image. There is then also a question of the truth of the image when they are created by a subjective human being, which could differ between the two processes again. The moments either side of the captured moment are not always clear or present in the resulting image, which effects whether it holds up as true or not. And the image itself could distort or mask the truth of the situation the moment was a part of, representing it in a false way. 

‘To leave a drawing in the state of its immediate production was, for me, an honest record – not of what I had seen but of what I had done in response to what I had seen’ - W. John Hewitt, ‘The Scribbler’, Varoom

‘What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially’ - Roland Barthes, ‘Camera Lucida’ 

Example - presidential candidate Bob Dole fell on a campaign, the resulting photo showing him on the floor grimacing, giving an impression of him to be weak and unstable. However it doesn't capture the immediate moment after, where he gets right back up and laughs off his tumble. Where a drawing could have been different is that the time it took to draw him on the floor, he would have had time to start getting back up, so perhaps the drawing would then not just capture that one misleading moment. 

This image also breaks the dispassionate observer theory that photographers are just passive onlookers; one of the photographers can be seen saving Dole's head from hitting the ground, instead of getting a potentially front cover shot.