Stage-managing life through a lens

Staging a picture is all right, provided your reader knows it has been staged

There’s more truth to some clichés than one might think. Take, for instance, the barber shop as the centre of rumour and conversation. The barber’s truly is one of the best places to get a feel for what’s going down around the city, and what’s shaking the proverbial gum tree.

On my last trip to the salon, I happened to overhear a conversation between two young men. They were discussing the day’s newspapers. As I was lathered up for my shave, they wondered whether photographers staged photographs to fit the story.

Babu (my barber) smiled at me when he realized that I was listening in to their discussion. You see, Babu knows what I do for a living, and he seemed amused about the scene unfolding.

One of the young men claimed to know a photographer who ‘admitted’ to staging pictures to meet ‘readers’’ needs; a statement that brought an unhappy grunt from his compatriot. They then took it upon themselves to pick at every picture in the papers. From sport to civic, they assumed the shape of two vultures sizing up a not-long-since-dead treat.

Back in 2004, I took a photograph of a victim of the Bhopal gas tragedy. It was a posed shot, that aimed to show what the girl had lost due to the gross negligence of an industrial behemoth. It was staged, yes, but it won me the World Health Organization (WHO) award on disability in 2005.

I can recall hundreds of staged pictures taken by top international photographers, some are dead, but their images live on.

Staging a picture is all right, provided your reader knows it has been staged. If you lead him to believe that the circumstances in and around the picture are natural, then you’re basically lying…and we all know where that gets you.

Even legendary photographers are not immune to the short-cut that staging provides. Robert Capa’s photograph in 1936 showing a solider falling to the ground after being shot from behind, fetched him some of the most prestigious awards. But it all came crashing down last year, albeit posthumously, when a Spanish newspaper that had recovered the original film sequencing the falling solider realised that the picture was staged.

Babu tapped me on the head to let me know that was done with embellishing nature’s work. I got up from the chair and headed towards the two men. I introduced myself and learned that their names were Somashekar and Dilip. They were surprised to know that most photographs that won awards in this day and age were staged.

Staging a picture may not be the ideal option for a photographer, but it can often be a magnificent canvas on which to capture the emotion and texture of life that can at times get lost in a natural shot.