Simulation:

Many, at times even a majority of photographs published in the press are preconceived attempts to simulate an activity that never happened or a specific “look.” These situations are set up by either the photographer, the editor or art director, or the subject and/or their media managers. The photo opportunity in which the powerful allot a few minutes to photographers, the placement of camera and subject having been chosen to give a specific message (the American flag in the background, for example), has left readers bored and in disbelief at the glossy repetition. The serious photographers must go through the motions of recording a realty that is, as everyone involved knows, unreal; the more mercantile photographers don’t care but cynically become recording secretaries to those who can afford them.

Once when I was invited to visit the White House for a day to work on a project I asked, interested in the mechanics of governing a nation, where President Reagan was at that time. I was told that Reagan was practicing shooting the goal into the net: the victorious US hockey team was about to visit.