Chris Dorley-Brown: The Corners

Photo: Chris Dorley-Brown

I was immediately blown away by the photos I encountered recently at the Robert Koch Gallery* in San Francisco. They were of fairly large size, impeccably printed (natch), highly detailed and precisely aligned compositions (think view camera) of various street scenes in England.  Large format or not, it was plain to see that this work clearly fit into the genre of street photography- the people inhabiting said compositions providing just the perfect balance, mystery and tension...

That's when the silent alarm buzzed my head; please, Lord, please- don't let these be multiple exposures where the right people are conveniently placed at the right place doing the right thing in the right way ie- please, don't let these be utterly beautiful, immaculate... lies. 

Now, there are those who will say a good picture is a good picture- what does it matter if it all happens in the field, or gets finished at home? Every photograph is a lie to some extent and bottom line, it's either good, or it isn't. Yeah, I get that; but no, I can't appreciate that. It just leaves one nasty lingering taste in my mouth. 

Now, Chris Dorley-Brown is not out to deceive anyone, he is perfectly forthright in what he does and how he does it. "Straight" photographs are hard enough to "interpret," and I'm certainly not gonna get into the whole history of how photographs "tell us nothing." But when we see a guy checking out a woman in a Winogrand photo, chances are, the guy was probably... checking out the woman in the photo (despite the usual plethora of other ambiguous, peripheral factors and details within said frame for us to ponder). In a Dorley-Brown photo, when I see a guy checking out a woman crossing the street, I have to wonder: was the guy really checking out that woman, was she even there, was he checking out another woman, a guy, a dog taking a shit? We'll never know! And while some may say that such a degree of image manipulation only serves to expand our perception of what's "real" and/or possible, it strikes me as merely allowing greater control of our own manipulation! When I look at a single exposure that truly works- I am left in wonder of how life sometimes (at least) seems to magically come together for the briefest of fleeting moments. When I see images such as these, complete in the knowledge of their artifice, I'm left with the wonder of... technology.

These, admittedly beautiful, images are highly choreographed fictions. Recently, an actor named Smollet was arrested for his deceitful fabrication, Dorley-Brown while perfectly honest with his fictionalizations, nevertheless exhibits them in the presentation and manner of straight "street," documentary photographs, and that is how they are viewed- and ultimately appreciated. Smollet staged and practiced his fiction beforehand, Dorley-Brown creates his fiction after the fact. Not exactly the perfect analogy, point taken- not to mention, one was done with criminal intent, the other without malice in the perfectly legitimate pursuit of artistic license. But if you allow me the initial premise, just as Smollet's deception will now unjustly cast doubt on every hate crime to follow, Dorley-Brown's fictions add to a growing list of photographers whose highly manipulated and seamlessly stitched collages continue to add doubt and mistrust as to the veracity of what we are viewing when it comes to photography, and reality, in this digital age. And perhaps, it's a lesson well learned to take nothing at face value- unlike with with, say... Jerry Uelsmann, whose highly manipulated photographs always welcomed us into a totally surreal otherworld of beauty and grandeur.

Understandably, some may see this as a trifling or even unfair criticism to what is a creative and much needed shot in the arm to a now stodgy and long in the tooth genre of photography. No one can say the results aren't impressive- just as no one can deny that it's inarguably harder to get it right in-camera!

*above photo not in exhibit