Photography and Reality

“Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.” - Arnold Newman


So I just started my BA photography course and I've been set my practice brief which has the title 'Reality'.  What is photography's relationship with reality? I can take the brief any way I want to and use any way and any format of camera to express the title but how? I need to research into it and the first quote I've looked at is the one above from environmental portraiture artist Arnold Newman. Questions the brief highlights include:


What is the role of the photographer?
What responsibilites or objectives might it include?
How and why are decisions made about photographic image making?


Quite a broad subject area to cover. So far I know I want to use medium format 6x6 and create a body of portraits but contextually and conceptually is what I need to research. What makes images real and does the image have to be reality? In a way when one person looks at an images they make their own reality within the image so do they strictly speaking have to be reality? The one image I would like to base my images on is one by Lothar Wolleh's 'Selbst' meaning self-portrait  below. He took the image in front of Petersdom in Roma in 1964.

The composition of Wolleh's work is always precise and designed. This is the effect I want my portraits to eventually portray. The portraits 'portray' something about the subject in the image but the main influence from his images is his linear and Bauhaus like composition of images. Like in the image about I find it fascinating how all the lines in the image automatically make the sitter look at the man in the centre. All lines and shapes lead your eyes straight into the portrait. Then you get to the precise framing of the man within the building. The image is so carefully divided into compositional thirds both vertically and horizontally. My ambitions with portraiture would be to combine the great works of Wolleh and the amazing work of Richard Avendon whose portraits manage to capture the personality of the sitter. Anyway, rant over, heres some other images of Wolleh's which are just simply amazing.

Konrad Klapheck (1970) - Lothar Wolleh

Henry Moore - Lother Wolleh (his last portrait)