They say a photograph never lies. Can it manipulate the truth? Accentuate a narrative?

Every photograph is a creative choice – the crop, the moment, the story it wants to tell. What we show (or not) results in an image and the narrative.

When the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi standing alone at the Air India crash site hit the headlines, it started a debate. Critics blamed that it was staged, a manufactured portrayal of solitary strength amid tragedy. Where are the responders? Where are the aviation experts? Where is the chaos that follows such a disaster?

Valid questions. But here’s the counter-question: Does every photograph show everything to tell the truth? Or is it the photographer’s creative choice to make a composition? Isn’t it the photographer’s choice to tell the story?

As a street and documentary photographer, I’ve lived with this tension during my shoots. Do I capture the bustling street or isolate the face in the crowd? Do I document reality or weave a story?

Let’s explore why this controversial image – rather than being unethical – is a masterclass in visual storytelling.

The Ethics of Isolation: Composition Is Not Concealment

In photojournalism, making frames isn’t falsifying; it’s focusing. Professional photographers won’t show everything in the view; they show the essentials in the frame.

The image of PM Modi inspecting wreckage doesn’t claim he’s the only one present at the crash site. It’s saying here’s the moment of reflection, responsibility, and reckoning. The photograph deliberately excludes the crowd to center the narrative.

Photographers do this routinely. You’ll see it in war photography, disaster coverage, and iconic portraits. For example, the Afghan Girl or Iwo Jima’s flag-raising. Powerful images simplify to amplify.

Visual Metaphor > Literal Representation

We forget that photographs are not GPS maps – they are metaphors. A leader standing amid rubble is not a census count of who else was physically present. It’s a visual essay about leadership under pressure.

It evokes solitude not because it lies about who was there but because it tells the emotional truth: the buck stops with the leader in moments of national disaster. They are – if only symbolically – alone in their responsibility.

Susan Sontag once wrote that photographs “furnish evidence.” But they also furnish interpretation. And interpretation is where meaning lives.

How Photojournalism Balances Truth, Composition, and Impact

There’s a clear difference between state propaganda and editorial storytelling. The line may be fine, but it isn’t faint.

Some of the most respected photojournalists deliberately isolate their subjects – not to deceive, but to distill. They work with negative space, gesture, and stillness to sharpen the image’s emotional gravity. Sometimes, a crowded frame muddies the message, and the silence speaks louder than the spectacle.

Henri Cartier-Bresson called it the “decisive moment” – that fleeting instant when composition and meaning align. But not every decisive moment arrives with chaos. Some come in the quiet aftermath, when the noise has settled, and the narrative hangs like dust over debris.

It’s a Creative Choice Street Photographers Make Every Day

Let me pull this into the everyday situations a photographer faces.

When I’m in the streets of Delhi or the Mekong Delta, I often find myself choosing: Should I document the scene as-is – bustling, messy, crowded? Or should I step back, wait, isolate one human, one expression, one gesture that speaks for the whole?

Framing a person against the light, away from the noise, isn’t deception. It’s distillation. When you click that shutter, you decide to show the soul, not the spreadsheet.

The same applies here. The PM’s image wasn’t showing a logistical response. It was showing leadership under the lens.

Manipulation vs. Message: The Slippery Slope

There have been notorious cases of photoshopping and unethical cropping, such as the 2015 Chennai flood window shot or the infamous doctored Soviet images. And those deserve criticism.

But, the falsification of photographs is a slippery slope.

Every photograph is manipulated by the nature of its boundary—what’s inside the frame and what’s outside. That doesn’t make every image unethical. The key is intent.

If the intent is emotional resonance, not misinformation, then what we’re witnessing isn’t propaganda—it’s perspective.

So, Was the Photo Ethical?

IMHO, yes.

Because it was honest in its emotion, restrained in its composition, and sharp in its symbolism. It wasn’t the whole story—but it was a meaningful chapter.

Photography, especially in times of crisis, walks a thin line. It must inform, yes. But it must also move. Because information gets processed. But emotion? It gets remembered.

Final Frame

Let’s not forget: even the most powerful photograph is still a rectangular composition. It can’t show the whole world. But if done right, it can reveal its pulse.

So next time you see a lone figure in a photo, ask, “Where’s everyone else?” Also ask, “What is this trying to say?”

Because the frame is beyond a lie or truth.
Each frame is a story, and this photographer pulled a stunning photo!

P.S. This post isn’t about defending any political stance. It’s an attempt to present a perspective through a photojournalist’s lens – personally, as someone who observes and composes moments as a street photographer.