Reality and illusion in photography

Probably most  will have read about the “student hoax” that won Paris Match’s annual contest for student photojournalism, a set of black and white images on how students at the French university of Strasbourg were making ends meet - if you’ve not seen the pictures, they are on the Paris Match site.

Although the pictures are described as “entirely faked” this is arguable. Obviously they were pictures taken with the cooperation of the people involved, but the techniques and the level of direction are perhaps little different from those in many more legitimate photojournalistic projects.

Photographic history is of course full of such things - for example in the work of one of our greatest photographers, Bill Brandt, where so many of his deservedly well-known scenes of London in the thirties were acted to his direction by family, friends and servants.

Thanks re-photo