Robert Capa’s photograph of the ‘death’ of a Republican soldier during the Spanish civil war, known as Falling Soldier (officially called the Death of a Loyalist Militiaman), opened the Pandora’s box of photojournalism. The photograph — of a man falling backwards on a sloping, grassy terrain, the rifle falling too from his extended right hand by the violence of the bullet that has struck him — purportedly freezes the moment of death of Federico Borrell Garcia in battle. The authenticity of the photograph has long been a subject of debate. An audit, by the International Center of Photography in New York, of negatives of film used by Capa (and by Gerda Taro, his lover) on that day at a place near Cordoba raised the distinct, yet uncomfortable, possibility that the photograph may not have been ‘real’. Garcia did die that day, but not in battle. Capa’s biographer, Richard Whelan, offered this explanation: during an informal truce, a group of soldiers which included Garcia enacted a battle charge for the camera. Enemy troops, fearing a real attack, opened fire, killing Garcia, the very moment the shutter was pressed.

Capa’s act — the simulation of reality to, ironically, describe what is real — brings into focus some intriguing aspects of photography. First, it raises the question of ethics: can simulation be an accepted code of behaviour in photojournalism? This query has a crucial bearing on a medium that is supposed to portray nothing but the truth, especially at a time when digital technology can tweak reality with dangerous ease. But a second — and to my mind, a more fascinating — query is this: in photojournalism, and in photography too, how real is real? Is not a photograph a record of not one but many realities?

Take for instance this photograph of Rahul Gandhi at a traffic light on a Delhi road, sometime at night. Rahul is seen sitting on a sleek sports bike, casually dressed, with earphones on, looking down intently at his hands possibly holding the iPod. There is some light on the patch of road where Rahul waits (for the lights to change perhaps).

One can see a zebra-crossing, the tail-lights of a receding car, and beyond that, in the darkness, a few twinkling lights. In a political space full of doddering, cynical and opportunistic men (and women), Rahul is supposedly the beacon of a promising young future, or so says the party he represents. But in the photograph, we see a deserted street, the absence of people, Rahul’s face turned away from the camera, conveying an unwillingness to engage, all this suggesting isolation, contemplation, even sadness. Is this then a visual portent of the remoteness and impossibility of the promise that he betokens? Does the premonitory quality of the photograph warn us of the puncturing of a nation’s dream?

Conversely, it could also be a visual record of the price one pays for adulation. The love of many forcing a young man, the inheritor of a rich political legacy, to furtively seek out a few moments of peace. Even then, in a curious twist, the photograph has turned a people’s icon into a fugitive in a momentary search for an ordinary life.

The perverse power of a photograph comes from its capacity to represent. Representation is a complex, contested space that can accommodate multiple interpretations and realities. Commenting on Capa’s photograph, the British writer, Geoff Dyer, writes how, over the years, Falling Soldier “has become more and more questionable as evidence, but its meaning has continued to deepen”. Rahul’s photograph, the fact and the myths it represents, lends itself to varied analyses. This ability to invoke the real and the make-believe within a single frame is what makes photography complex, yet alluring.