Oldal 596 [596]
OCR
594 Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska ‘battle performances’), reenactment groups reunions (in Polish z/oty ‘meetings’), or during photographic sessions that involve both male and female reenactment (Figs 1-8), which often accompany the mentioned events. In the case of battle reenactments, a photographer cannot influence the subject of the photography directly. He or she captures events as they unfold and the dynamics of the reenactment and can modify only the form of the image—crop it, change the light; later he or she can edit the image using computer programs. However, some photographers, especially those using analog cameras, avoid “postproduction”. What is more, when organizing a photo session, the photographers have significantly more to say in terms of photo composition, and the whole subject of such photographs is more susceptible to the photographer’s imagination. This kind of rendering imitates actual war photographs by original war pictures. Photographers make efforts, through taking photos of reenactors and their actions, to give an impression of the past (Fig. 9). There is an intriguing ambiguity in their activity. In some way, the photographers should overcome the otherness of the past’ by re-creating it in images, yet simultaneously, they should reflect this otherness in photographs to make them look authentic, similar to those of the past. ‘This interplay between original war images and their contemporary re-creations constitutes the core of reenacting photography. The constant tension between the past and the present is thus inalienably inscribed in contemporary visual representations of history. Today’s images of reenacted war would not affect viewers if no original war photographs existed—without originals they would not be understandable. Therefore, these modern images are not only a commemoration of a social (reenactment) event, but they are seen and experienced within the context of original war photography and general imagery of WWII and also as affected by the reenactors’ practice, which is embedded in the imagery, as is the whole WWII reenactment scene. Reenacted photos are also made within the very same context. Photographers want their photographs to be typical of the reenacted period and perceived as such. In this sense they try to make studium-type photographs, to employ the Barthesian (1981) notion, in a way that they would like them to be a part of historical narration.® This manner of taking pictures of war, learned and embodied by reenactors and also the photographers themselves (in the discussed cases mostly employed by people making impressions of German Kriegsberichters—war photographers), as well as their aesthetics, becomes a tool in reenacting WWII photography. However, only some contemporary photos effectively imitate the pictures from the past, and making them into credible replicas (Fig. 10) is a task not only for the photographer but also for reenactors who are depicted in those images. They have to collect all 7 This problem is relevant for the majority of activities in the reenactment movement (see e.g. Agnew 2007; Cook 2004; Crang 1996; Decker 2010; Gapps 2009; Handler & Saxton 1988). 8 On studium and historical narration, see Jay 2011.
