The Picture Problem- Fallon Wilson

“The Picture Problem” by Malcolm Gladwell explores and challenges the trust mankind has in photography as a perfect representation of fact. He states, “…we simply don’t trust our tactile sense as much as our visual sense,” this being true on multiple scales, including warfare and cancer detection.

The overwhelming misconception that photography displays truth is as old as photography itself. Eadweard Muybridge created a series of photographs that showed the “true” movement of a running horse. While this may have been a more accurate depiction than the “ventre à terre” drawings that had represented movement previously, it led to the idea that all photography shows the truth of the world, which Gladwell proves is not always the case. 

Mammograms, X-rays taken of women’s breasts to detect cancer, are prime examples of photographs not telling the whole truth. While this method of screening is very popular and sometimes effective in identifying irregularities in breasts, it is not fool-proof, despite each seemingly telling image. It is the responsibility of a doctor to interpret the image and determine whether or not calcium build-ups appear irregular. What makes this so risky, though, is that “…mammography is especially likely to miss the tumors that do the most harm.” In a study,  high ranking, well trained doctors had a very hard time accurately diagnosing or even suspecting cancer in many women based solely on mammograms. A large reason for this is that calcium deposits appear white on mammograms, the same color as normal tissue. If calcium deposits begin to form in a fatty, dark area, the cancer can easily be detected while very small. If cancer begins to form in the non-fatty, normal tissues, though, there will be no indication of irregularity, and often grow much larger before being detected. The error in representation of the photograph combined with human error, creates an even lower possibility for accurate results. 

A Canadian study found that the group of women receiving only a hands-on breast exam was just as successful as receiving a routine mammogram screening along with the hands-on exam. This is not to say that mammograms are useless, because they do detect many irregularities, but it is to say that a photograph is not always the most accurate way of seeing the whole truth; photography often only tells part of the story.