Manifesto

No longer is a photograph automatically considered to be the trustworthy, credible form of witnessing that it once was. Given the overwhelming flood of images that are produced and published daily, the easy availability of imaging software to modify what has been recorded, the continuing preference for spectacle, and the increasingly entrenched viewpoints in society which disallow contradictory evidence, the impact of the photograph as an important arbiter of the real has been severely diminished. Rather than exploring the vagaries of existence, now the photograph (if that is still the correct term) is all too often intended as the confirmation of a pre-existing point of view, a form of branding in what has grown to resemble an image war. 

While digital tools and platforms have enabled this transformation, they also support new strategies that provide greater contextualization, engagement, and interaction for all those involved—the photographer, the subject, and the reader. The intention of The Fifth Corner is to advance a paradigm shift in which image-based media are utilized in more thoughtful and informative ways, inviting both the photographer and the viewer to pay attention to what might not have been previously known, and provoking questions that might otherwise not been asked. The intent here is both to acknowledge a transformed media landscape and encourage a foray into possibility, supporting and developing image-based strategies that favor the more authentic, impactful, and expansive.