Making It Up : Photographic Fictions, V&A exhibition review

Making it up is an exhibition where photographers make things up with in photography, creating an event instead of informing people like documentary photography. The images in this exhibition are created by photographers to tell us stories, ones that are made up instead of showing us the truth, which we don’t expect, from this type of photography.

The photographs in this exhibition came from the V&A archives, images used from the 1850s to 1870s. The images show a clear representation of the photographers staging behind the lens. Staged photography has been around since the birth of photography. With staged photographs they are like film sets and the photographers almost become like directors. Symbolism is very key within staged photography as the photographer doesn’t always give a clear narrative so its up to the audience to read into the photographs by looking at the symbols shown in the photograph.

Within the exhibition is a great example of staged photography by Trish Morrissey with a photograph from her series ‘Seven Years’ which are staged images created using herself and her sister as models to re-create old family photographs, where they played the roles of both male and female family members. She went to the same locations as where the original photograph was taken. She tried to find clothes and props of the same era of the photographs finding them in charity shops and her parent’s attic. With these photographs Morrissey has made scenes, characters and even used props, almost becoming a photographer, director and actor all in one.

 

People usually expect photography to show truthfulness however throughout history as we can see in these images that photography can be used as a means of telling stories and making the audience read images as if they were reading a book. This exhibition lures in viewers to see into these made up tales created by the photographer behind the lens.