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| Too Bad To Be False |
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| The Government's Annual Report for 1998/99 was recently published. Or rather the government's annual report. The lower case letters are important, they reflect the image of informality that Mr. Blair, or rather Tony, has attempted to project since redefining the party as New Labour. It is an informal image that the photographs used in the report reinforce. |
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| the government's annual report |
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| Last year the government began a shift away from the glossy veneer of traditional reports. For 97/98 we were greeted by a picture of Tony inside No.10 looking sincere and determined, followed by a selection of black and white photographs (mostly by Magnum and Network photographers) depicting the positive changes that New Labour claimed to have made during their first year in power. So far, so predictable. But occupying full pages throughout the report were colour portraits of people seemingly stopped at random in the street or at their workplace. Handwritten over the top in various states of legibility are comments on the government's achievements, presumably made by the people in the images. These range from 'I am pleased with changes that have been made and am looking forward to the improvements in the transport system' over a smartly dressed young woman in the middle of Trafalgar Square, to 'GIZZA JOB' from a bloke in a tracksuit top. The style of these photographs is highly reminiscent of Gillian Wearing's series Signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say. Although Wearing's people were holding up boards that they had written on, the same implication remains that in the report we are getting 'what you want to say and not what the government wants to say'. |
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| the government's annual report |
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| For the 98/99 report professional photographers have been abandoned altogether. The inside front cover tells us that disposable cameras (like the one depicted on the cover) 'were sent to a cross-section of public sector employees across the United Kingdom, from nurses to coastguards, from teachers to local government workers. They were asked to take pictures of what had changed in their work or their local communities, good or bad, over the last year, and supply captions.' The photographs that follow are scattered over the report's pages at jaunty angles, some half off the page, like pictures casually pinned to a notice board. Framed with a mock white border to signify 'snapshot' the photographs follow the snap style, hastily composed and often with the subjects looking directly at the camera. We see nurses at work filing x-rays, meals on wheels, renovated housing and friendly bobbies. As well as all the positive imagery we are also shown staff having to pay and display in a hospital car park and an area of Aberdeen 'refused for regeneration'. But these negative images and captions are few and far between. Their inclusion underlines the suggestion that we are getting the full picture, while their scarcity implies that things are mostly okay. |
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| the government's annual report |
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| The result of the snapshot approach is a kind of family photo album of 'the people's pictures'; Britain is one big happy family, united by a shared aesthetic. Like any amateur photo album there are a few cock ups. Many of the pictures appear underexposed, a few have lens flare and one even boasts the classic photographic mistake, a finger over the lens. The photographs have of course been carefully edited, so why do these pictures appear? |
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| The answer may be that their amateurish qualities imply a certain authenticity. The general public is increasingly aware of how a professional photographer can construct and manipulate photographs to create an idyllic image. Yet if the regular folk behind this report's pictures cannot even get their fingers out of the shot how can they possibly be lying? These photographs are surely too bad to be false. |
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| The use of disposable camera's for the government's annual report 98/99 does indeed make a refreshing change from the kind of imagery we have come to expect from such dry promotional tomes. Yet there is perhaps something more insidious about the snapshot approach. The suggestion is that what we are seeing here does not come from the government, but from the people themselves. However the editing was of course made by the government. Using snapshot photographs ultimately results only in a difference of presentation; what is represented remains as fabricated as ever. After all, there is nothing more constructed than a family photo album. |
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Stephen Bull |
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