The Discovery of the Sardines, Newhall, California, 1971

​Ger van Elk’sThe Discovery of the Sardines, Newhall, Californiahas the air of a
scene from a B moviein which the
first sign of sardines emerging from a crack in a Los Angeles County road
portends a plague of fish roiling just under the surface of the earth. Van Elk plays
with photography’s basic claims to truth-telling; this photograph is an
unmanipulated, realistic recording, but van Elk himself inserted the sardines
in the earthquake-caused fissure. Near Newhall is Placerita Canyon, the site of
the first discovery of gold in California, in 1842. It was subsequently home to
several major outdoor television and movie filming locations, called “movie
ranches.” This diptych shows that, in photography, film, and representation generally,
truth and fiction are not mutually exclusive.