Authenticity in Documentary Photography
“While I was in Cappadocia, I visited Chez Hakan, a small family-run pottery workshop in the small town of Avanos. I met Hakan, a third generation potter, who had been running the business with his brother Gökhan. As I walked into his workshop, Hakan offered me a cup of tea and we made a little small talk, but before long he returned back to shaping his clay. Mostly through translation by my guides, I found out that pottery was an ancient tradition in the region, going back to the Hittites thousands of years ago.”
If this was the description I posted onto social media or my portfolio, the above would be a truthful, but not wholly representative summary. What it doesn’t say is that I don’t think I’ve ever had a shoot linger on my mind for so long, nor have I ever struggled so much with whether I should share a set of images. I do really like the photos and I think they come together to tell a strong photo story; however, I think they raised a lot of “ethical” questions for my photography. Through reflection, I think a lot of my unease has come from this one concept: authenticity. I definitely don’t have all the answers, but I thought rather than hiding both my thoughts and images away, that I would take the opportunity to share both, and to start a conversation (mostly with myself). [Note: When I say authenticity, I am not referring to finding one’s unique style/voice, which is a whole other conversation. In this case, I am referring to questions of genuineness and trust.]
Perhaps a good starting point in this conversation would be to define what I understand as authenticity. I don’t have a single fixed definition, but I associate it with words like “truth”, “genuine”, “candid” and "real”. Using this as a baseline, perhaps this whole conversation is moot. Is Hakan a potter? Yes. Was he in his own studio? Yes. Was he probably going to be making pottery that day? Yes. Problem solved? Perhaps not.
I think the first thing which has made me feel uneasy was the fact that I paid for access to shoot Hakan in his studio. When I say access, I mean the ability to meet and shoot subjects otherwise would not have able to. Access can be gained through building up connections and local knowledge over time, or especially when you travel, it can be gained through paying someone who has these connections. In this case, it was my guide’s connections connections with the local community that enabled me to have access. Without them, I would never have (a) found out about Hakan’s shop/studio; and (b) been allowed to come in with a camera to shoot. Broadly speaking, one pays to gain access to everything when they travel, whether it is tickets for an attraction or even just the hotel which allows you to stay and access the place you are in. Without access, you are very much stuck shooting at the “surface level”, and it becomes much harder coming away with anything unique or compelling.
This is not the first time I have paid for access. In fact, many of my previous shoots, such as the fish market in Hoi An, were only possible through paying for local knowledge and access. I think that what was different though was this was the first time I had paid for access to a person, rather than a place or a scene. Especially because it was one-on-one, I started considering that much of his conduct would have been performative. At one point, he asked me if there were any “poses” that I wanted him to hold i.e. if I wanted him to hold up the pottery in a particular way. I told him that I wanted him to carry on as if I weren’t there, but I still couldn’t and can’t get rid of the feeling that I was in a portrait studio.
The thing is, Hakan is very much used to being paid to being photographed. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were paying attention, but outside his studio, there were mirrors focusing light onto him while he is at his chair. Moreover, there was even a hidden smoke machine which provides more “atmosphere” to the room. While I told my guides to minimise the amount of smoke they generated, ultimately I felt that the more atmospheric images were far superior. And therein lies the issue. Yes, without me Hakan would probably be sitting in the same spot making pottery, but the scene would look vastly different without the smoke and mirrors (no pun intended). Unlike at the the fish market in Hoi An or even the hawker centres of Singapore, my presence had vastly altered the scene. Was I being genuine in my representation in Hakan and his work? I truthfully don’t know. Maybe if I provided a disclaimer which outlines what I’ve said above, perhaps I would feel better. Still, I think that this whole episode has raised questions over what subjects I am presenting, and how I represent them in my work.
I do think this is a very strong image. Does it, or should it, change your impression if I say that smoke and light were artificially added in?
I need to emphasise there is nothing wrong with doing “staged” work - I have so much respect for photographers, like painters, who can conceptualise and craft an image out of nothing in a studio. I think my struggle with authenticity comes down to how I represent myself and my work, and how I choose to engage with photography. What do I mean? I think that in my photography, I do strive to represent the world as genuinely as I can, which is why I love being a fly on the wall and just documenting my subjects. While there are a lot of ways to get superior final images, photography has always been more than that to me - it is a process through which I engage and try to tell organic stories. A large part of my joy with photography is the “thrill of the chase” - I love going out to shoot in nature, despite knowing a million things can go wrong. Even if things fail (as they often do), I think that going through that process of exploration and trying to represent things as genuinely as possible is what I constantly strive for, and is what I understand authenticity in documentary photography to be.
