I have been in conflict with my family since I was 16. Even if I don’t have a scholarship nor parental assistance, I have always fended for myself.
Armin, 23, Master of Sociology.
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.
The winners claimed that the idea was hatched a year ago when they looked at all the work students were competing with for the 2008 prize. They realized that the “world view of this work was limited and seemed more like vacation photographs as opposed to photojournalism. The photographs depicted small children with big wet eyes in order to illustrate the misery abroad.”
Speaking to Le Figaro, Guillaume Chauvin 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.”
Unfortunately, I could only find this on Le Figaro’s French website and had to use some of my own as well as some automatic translation to get the full gist of the story. If you read French, you can go to Le Figaro to read the rest.
To see the full set of staged photos, go here.
Update:
The British Journal of Photography just posted a brief write up about the story.
[...] French Photo Hoax « Horses Think addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.frenchbrite.com%2Ffrench-photo-hoax-%25c2%25ab-horses-think%2F’; [...]
[...] more here: French Photo Hoax « Horses Think This entry was written by JK, posted on June 26, 2009 at 8:27 am, filed under general and tagged [...]
Genius!
If their goal was to demonstrate that modern photojournalism is lacking in quality, wouldn’t the best way to do it be to do better photojournalism?
Except that better photojournalism is really, really hard. Much easier to take staged photos and come up with some ex post facto rationalization.
Sad, because they’ve not only damaged legitimate photojournalism, they’ve also damaged art photography. They’ve certainly destroyed their own reputations. Dishonest, arrogant, and pathetic.
Their goal was not to demonstrate that PJ is lacking in quality but full of cliche ideas, and reused and reashed photographic language so much so that it is quite is to fake.
I would rephrase your final paragraph and say they exposed photojournalism for its commercial and aesthetic misunderstandings and have used the subversive qualities of art and questioning to cement themselves as thinkers, questioners and therefore artists. Wonderful, refreshing and much more honest than many photojournalism essays we see every day.
It just hurts a little when the critique is pointed at you.
Evan caught with his pants down i suspect.
Back in the late 90’s some up and coming director won considerable praise and adulation for his “documentary” on a union strike based very much on the real deal Harlan County. The audience was not alerted to the fact it was faked until the closing credits when the actors were listed.
He died in an accident a couple of years later.
Bill Brandt did this kind of thing way before these guys though (and no doubt others have done it before and since). He was known to stage images produced on commission for Picture Post (I think) using his friends as models. So they were more illustrations than documentary photos, though I think they were published as the latter.
Not trying to excuse the French guys here BTW, just pointing out an interesting precedent?
Oh, and they may have stirred up a storm and forfeited the prize money, but as a payoff I’d say they have a brilliant career in advertising ahead of them…
This is not photojournalism, this is art. I can’t believe that anyone calling themselves a photojournalist would ever think about doing such an action, even if they are students. No one is to blame but the students. At least they were honest in the end, but that doesn’t make up for what they did.
“This is not photojournalism, this is art.”
“doesn’t make up for what they did”
What they did was amazing, if they truly conceived of the project from ground up in order to enter and win a photoj contest, in order to subvert it. It’s genius. These contests are often money making, grandstanding, publicity obsessed, back patting circle jerks.
Getting up there and saying what they did – probably a million times more poignant in the photo-j world than yet another “times are tough” or “things are tough somewhere else” image series.
It takes balls. I’m amazed.
[...] Intenção: Questionar os limites e a forma como o fotojornalismo actual é feito. Ver mais em French Photo Hoax no Horses Think e no Le Figaro, as imagens estão aqui.Apesar da “farsa”, a reportagem não deixa de [...]
[...] Think, French Photo Hoax: Paris-Match awarded their annual Grand Prix du Photoreportage Etudiant this week to two French [...]
[...] crafted to appeal to the jury through trends that they’ve witnessed over the years. This from Horses Think: The winners claimed that the idea was hatched a year ago when they looked at all the work students [...]
If they felt photojournalism was so cliche they should have done a better job at it themselves. Photojournalism is not easy. There are editors, page designers, reporters, all of which screw up a good photojournalist’s work. There are space issues etc… The list is endless. It’s not easy and the pay is low. Anyone can come up with a good idea. Actually going out there and finding the photo’s is a different story. I find it disturbing that the art world or anyone calling themselves an artist, celebrates copyright infringement and out right lying fakes as genius. I grew up believing art was something inside a person soul. Something that compelled a person to think and create. Not trying to do something outlandish to draw attention to your self. I have attention so therefore I’m an artist? I don’t think so.
So, if they faked quotations for a newspaper story and then came out, would they be heroes? How about faking quotations in an ethnography? I do think that photojournalism is full of cliches, incidentally, but I am ambivalent, to say the least, of the value of this hoax.
“Evan caught with his pants down i suspect.”
Not really clear on what you’re implying here. I’m not a photojournalist, if that’s the assertion.
The idea that “sticking it to the man” is a daring and creative statement is ridiculous. Violating the trust of the contest organizers is an exercise in dishonesty and arrogance, and for what? What have they proved? That it’s easier to take a staged photo than a true photojournalistic one?
Big freakin’ whoop.
Dishonest, arrogant, and pathetic.
[...] Horses Think blog: The winners claimed that the idea was hatched a year ago when they looked at all the work [...]
For the record– http://movies.tvguide.com/dadetown/review/131741
The director of Dadetown made us literally pay for his act of cunning and deceit; the students properly fessed up and slapped us all upside the head to keep us honest…
[...] links:British Journal of PhotographyFrench Photo HoaxLe Figaro (French)Fake Photojournalism wins [...]
Modern journalism is a hoax. Stories aren’t reported but crafted to present a preconceived view, depicting “small children with big wet eyes in order to illustrate the misery abroad.” These students have used a hoax to expose the hoax. Two negatives are a positive. If art is to make a statement, these students have done well.
А мне нравится этот блог, только авторам надо помнить , что посетители разные бывают. Короче учитывайте возростной ценс посетителей.
Полностью все усироило меня в этом блоге, нашел все что хотел. Везде бы так делали.
[...] is widely shared. There are structural problems too, duh. Yeah, I know it’s not easy. But still. Check out the discussions section on BURN magazine. Some interesting things there… Some new [...]
[...] is widely shared. There are structural problems too, duh. Yeah, I know it’s not easy. But still. Check out the discussions section on BURN magazine. Some interesting things there… Some new [...]
[...] This is from commercial photographer Chase Jarvis’s blog post this morning, and if this topic sounds interesting – how could it not? – you can get a full overview of the story at this post of Horses Think. [...]
[...] This is from commercial photographer Chase Jarvis’s blog post this morning, and if this topic sounds interesting – how could it not? – you can get a full overview of the story at this post of Horses Think. [...]