Thursday
Apr092009
ku # 572 ~ it's just a thought
Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 08:52AM 
Signs of Spring ~ Lake Champlain • click to embiggenIf the medium of photography is not to be considered to be able to create true and accurate depictions of the real, why don't law enforcement departments just hire crime scene painter/illustrators and save us, the taxpayer, the money spent on photo gear?
Reader Comments (7)
Maybe because there is a popular belief that photography is taken by a machine so it is less prone to tell lies.
At least this was one of the reasons it was introduced for in the second half of the 19th century. An other funny reason was the hope to ease the capture of the criminals but this one did not live up to the hopes. But the most important thing, I suppose, is that normal policemen can take pictures but rarely can paint :-D
It depends on what realm of "the real" you mean. A camera can't depict pictures of only infrared light, which are important aspects of reality for certain applications. It's prone to telling only part of reality, subject to manipulation by angle, perspective, exposure, mechanical limitations, etc.
Since a photograph, or even a series of them, can only capture a small subset of what "the real" is, it can't capture "the real" in any absolute sense. From a practical perspective, however, you can more or less capture a scene how a person would perceive it from that perspective at that moment in time, and so from a practical perspective we accept it as an accurate representation. Certainly not any kind of absolute -- only as a practicality, because we still need to live life and not constantly get bogged down in obsessively questioning every detail.
every moment is true
if only for a moment.
Photos capture moments
and holds them hostage
for as long as the photo exists.
I love the half duck. An astounding image Mark that just stops me in my tracks. Is this shot from the ferry or from the shore? Holy shit, I hardly ever talk about your images anymore....and that's the truth.
"If the medium of photography is not to be considered to be able to create true and accurate depictions of the real why don't law enforcement..."
I agree 100%! However, as photographers are we bound to depict only reality while other art forms do not have that constraint?
Does the fact that if one interprets a scene in a way far removed from reality, does that take away from someone who thru photography only depicts reality? It the whole photographic art from diminished by it?
hey Mary - the picture was made from the shoreline - the ducks and their placement were pure happenstance - right place, right time.
And, feel free to talk about my pictures anytime ... please
the truth, but not the whole truth.
Depends a lot on which direction you point it. But then, that's just about all photography is about, deciding which way to point the camera.