Against Imprinting: The Photographic Image as a Source of Evidence

A photographic image is said to provide evidence of a photographed scene because it is a causal imprint of reflected light: an indexical trace of real objects and events. Though widely established in the history, theory and philosophy of photography, this traditional imprinting model must be rejected because it relies on a 'single-stage' misconception of the photographic process: the idea that a photographic image comes into existence at the time of exposure. In its place, a 'multi-stage' account properly articulates different production stages, such as registering and rendering, that are relevant to understanding the relation between a photographic image and the photographed scene. By denying that any photographic image is a causal imprint, the multi-stage approach proposes a more demanding evaluation of photographic evidence. This has implications for documentary film and photojournalism along with specialised applications such as forensics, surveillance and face-recognition technology