Taryn Simon's TED Talk vastly differed from any that I have watched so far; she is a photographer who sheds a light on reality of situations that are usually covered up. The majority of her talk was her flipping through her photos and describing the unusual circumstances under which they are taken; she was not very lively or involved, but that did not distract from her talk. She almost needed to be monotonous to be able to absorb the full impact of her pictures. In the end, empathy is what her talk came down to; the little stories allowed me to relate to the situation, but the photographs showed the raw humanity and irony of certain situations. Simon seemed a bit ill prepared when it came to her TED Talk; she "ummed" her fair share and did not seem at home up on the stage. It felt like the whole thing was her reading a script in front of a huge, attentive audience. She works beautiful with photographs, but speaking motivationally was not her strong suit; her photographs could have played in a slideshow to music with captions of the story and it would have had the same effect as her speaking. If she had used more emotion in her voice, or even displayed the slightest amount of connection, this talk could have been magnificent.
Simon really only details one message: "Our eyes are easily deceived." Near the end, she launches into one of her projects; she photographed men who had been wrongly accused of malicious crimes including rape, murder and robbery. These men had to serve time for crimes that they weren't remotely involved in, for men who were guilty and slid by free of charges. In multiple cases, photographs were given to witnesses in order to to identify their attackers; the victims were drawn to a photograph (of a man similar to their attacker) and that picture was taken and put into another group of photos for the victim to review. They again picked the picture of the person they assumed to be their attacker, but this time the face in the photograph had replaced the face of the actual attacker. Those that were wrongly convicted were then photographed in settings relevant to their arrests; one man accused of kidnapping, raping and murdering woman was photographed where the crime allegedly occurred. He had never been there. Simon sets out to expose the realities of life through beauty and whimsical imagery. She describes one situation in which Disney World rejects her request to access her subjects: photography threatens fantasy. This shows that in today's world, we rely too much on photography, and not enough on our own memories. Her angle is to show the ironies involved in photography compared to that of reality; it gives a different tone to photography and adds refreshing fact in a sea of obscured truth.
"A picture is worth one thousand words;" it's an accurate statement, but sometimes we don't know the truth behind it. When I was little, I looked at a picture, thinking it was myself. I told my mom, "Wait, I don't remember ever taking a picture in that chair..." She responded, "Maria, that's because it isn't you. It's your sister." My sister and I aren't twins and there is quite an age gap, but the picture was taken at a time where we looked quite similar. It could have been error due to young age, but I don't believe that. My eyes were deceived and I knew no better than to think it was me. It would have never occurred to me that it was actually my sister in the photograph. In society this is an extremely important error to be made. The public is easily persuaded by the photographs placed in TMZ or advertisements or Breaking News Bulletins, and those photographs easily, easily, could be fabricated or tampered with and the public would never know. We believe whatever we see because someone saw it somewhere, and that is proof enough for us. Not everyone goes and checks every backstory on every photograph we see in People Magazine showing how Britney Spears has cellulite or how Gwyneth Paltrow got abs fast! We believe it because someone that we think has authority decided to publish it. But we don't really know if Britney has cellulite, or if someone decided to make it appear that way, no one investigates it either. As Simon says (no pun intended) the picture can replace the memory; when I see Gwyneth Paltrow, I won't think of a person, but the tan fit body and bleach blonde hair of Gwyneth Paltrow. But why does this even matter? We turn humans into objects, fabricate memories, and lose touch with our memories and ourselves. In total, we pretty much lose our human nature by relying too much on photographs. We do not live in photographs, we do not live in the false smiles and photoshopped bodies of Abercrombie adds; we live in reality and it's time to move away from leaning upon pictures as a crutch. The eyes are easily deceived, we cannot trust something fully if it cannot accurately display the situation. Photographs must be supplemented by some other truth. Simon's photographs contrast the relationship between reality and photography. People must take this approach to life, showing both sides of the spectrum and allowing the truth to be shown through imagery.
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