One way to challenge the definition of photojournalism; not exactly what I had had in mind, but interesting nonetheless.
Horses Think, French Photo Hoax:
Paris-Match awarded their annual Grand Prix du Photoreportage Etudiant this week to two French students who submitted a photographic story that apparently presented images documenting the precarious lives of students today and the things they must do to survive.
When the two winners, Guillaume Chauvin and Remi Hubert, both art students at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs of Strasbourg, stood up at the Sorbonne to claim their trophy and prize money, they announced the true nature of their work. The images were not photojournalism but staged images featuring many of their peers.
See the images for yourself.
Speaking to Le Figaro, Guillaume Chauvin [one of the students] confided that they “wanted to enter the contest in order to show the codes used too often in photojournalism and to prove that something real could be translated into something staged.”
Were any rules broken? According to the British Journal of Photography, no:
However, terms and conditions don’t forbid faked reportages – a situation that is likely to change next year. Already, Paris Match has withdrawn its cash prize, offering it, instead, to the two student’s university of decorative arts in Strasbourg. The weekly magazine, which is now warning readers that the images have been faked, has also announced that next year’s cash prize will be increased to €10,000 as a result of this year’s ‘fraud’.
What to make of the entire affair? I think Chase Jarvis nails it:
I think what they’ve done is not to make brilliant photojournalism, but to make brilliant art. There was certainly a significant price to be paid for that art, or perhaps many prices: the reputation of the award, the reputation of the judges, even their own reputations perhaps–and only time will tell–but they’ve surely made some brilliant statements about the nature of such imagery, called into question the cliched nature of the traditional canons recognizing that work, and made us all pause, even if just for a moment, to consider what photojournalism really is. By blending genres (PJ + perhaps advertising photography?) and creating staged images that were stunning enough to win a Grand Prize (hard work in it’s own right), I’d argue that they’ve achieved their end goal. And they’ve done so in an incredibly creative way. Subversive and meta.
Coverage:
- Horses Think, French Photo Hoax.
- British Journal of Photography, Two students con Paris Match’s photojournalism prize.
- Chase Jarvis, Fake Photojournalism Wins.
- Jörg Colberg in Conscientious, Fake photojournalism wins prize.
