The truth of photographic images has been challenged since the 19th century when the means for making them were invented. While the medium was embraced by the public at large, photographers have grappled with the methods and techniques available to them, experimenting with technologies as they emerged and discovering the capacity of the medium to represent the world they experienced.
 
Photographs are inherently subjective in the ways in which they are made and perceived. There is no absolute truth in the photographic image. Photographers frame the reality that they see, whether the process is spontaneous or planned.

The truth of photography relies not only on the integrity of the image, but on its context and accessibility.

FACE TO FACE

The International Center of Photography's current exhibition, Face to Face: Portraits of Artists by Tacita Dean, Brigitte Lacombe and Catherine Opie (running Jan 27–May 01, 2023), was organized by renowned writer and curator Helen Molesworth. For this edition, Truth in Photography spoke with each of the women featured in the exhibition to get their unique perspectives on portraiture and the image.

PORTRAIT FILMS
Tacita Dean

The films of artist Tacita Dean are intimate portrayals of their subjects. In the 16mm films included in the ICP's exhibition, Dean seeks to get at the essence of the artists David Hockney, Luchita Hurtado, and Julie Mehretu.

UNTITLED
Brigitte Lacombe

The persecuted people of Rohingya faced a massacre in 2017, causing around 800,000 people to flee their homeland. These photographs by Rohingya photographers show displaced people and their lives in refugee camps.

SHARED MOMENTS
Catherine Opie

Photographs by Issam Larkat focus on the youth of Relizane, a small town in the west of Algeria. These largely unemployed young people feel abandoned and excluded from what is happening in the world.​

AMBIGUOUS TRUTH
Cristina de Middel

Coming from a background in documentary photography, Magnum president Cristina de Middel makes evocative photographs that blur the lines of reality.

ENCOUNTERS
Lua Ribeira

​Lua Ribeira uses the photographic medium as a means to create encounters that establish relationships and question structural separations between people.

ENGAGING THE SUBJECT
Olivia Arthur

With a myriad of projects around the world, photographer Olivia Arthur discusses the ways she approaches her varied works and engages with her subjects.
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