by Errol Morris
First published 2011
Academy Award winning filmmaker Errol Morris investigates the mysteries behind documentary photographs that shaped public perception. He examines Roger Fenton's two versions of a Crimean War battlefield, one scattered with cannonballs and one without, questioning whether the photographer staged the scene. Morris travels to the original location to solve this 150-year-old puzzle. He explores how Depression-era photographers like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans documented rural poverty for the government, and why moving a cow skull in one image sparked accusations of propaganda. Morris analyzes why four different photojournalists captured nearly identical images of toys in Lebanese bombing rubble during the 2006 war, and whether the controversy centered on the photos themselves or their political implications. Through detective work and philosophical inquiry, Morris reveals how photographs can mislead as much as they inform. He demonstrates that what viewers see often reflects their existing beliefs rather than objective truth. The book combines investigative journalism with meditation on the nature of visual evidence, showing how images we trust as factual records frequently contain hidden manipulations and subjective choices.
Genres: history, non-fiction, 21st-century, photography, art-history, academic
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Crimean War, Lebanon, United States
Period: 19th Century, 20th Century, 21st Century
310 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press