civilized ku # 2245-46 ~ wired or not - 2 versions of the real/truth
Monday, July 2, 2012 at 03:22PM 
Rt. 86 ~ Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Rt. 86 # 2 ~ Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenIt has been fashionable, especially in academic circles, to state that photographs are not "true", or, rather that all photographs "lie".
This notion is based on the undeniable fact that picture makers make a wide variety of choices in the making of their pictures. Choices involving POV, lens selection, processing techniques, and, of course, what they decide to include within or exclude beyond a picture's frame. In addition, the notion of time, as in capturing (in most cases) just a fraction of a second thereof, is often cited as another "choice" which fractures the time continuum which we all know and love.
All of the above (and more) are considered to be "distortions" of the real/true and, therefore, the conclusion is that, de facto, all photographs distort the real/true. For some, this is proof positive that photographs can not be "true", "truthful" or accurate representations of the real.
To be certain, some picture makers do employ lens which introduce optical distortion. Others process their pictures to the point of unreal-ness. Some are expert at seamlessly integrating into / removing elements from a picture. In those cases, the resultant pictures do not accurately represent what the human eye sees and could, without a doubt, be considered to be distortions of the real/true or, at the very least, "stretching" the real/true for "artistic" effect.
OK, but what about those pictures made by those who use the medium and its apparatus to capture / record exactly (inasmuch as the medium and its apparatus allow) what their eyes see?
IMO, such pictures are, indeed true and accurate representations of the real.
nota bene ... It should go without stating, that a representation of a thing is not the thing itself - it is a facsimile of that which it illustrates. However, a facsimile is not necessarily a distortion of that which it represents. Some are, some aren't. Unfortunately, in case of photographs, it's not always easy to tell which pictures are true and which are distortions.
In many cases, where distortions are not visually obvious - wide angle lens distortion, saturation well beyond the real, color / WB distortions, and cock-eyed tonal values, to name just a few - the viewer must rely on the stated intentions and known methodology of a picture maker's use of the medium and its apparatus. Again unfortunately, such information is often not available or stated and in those cases it is up to a viewer's trained eye - a through knowledge of the medium and its apparatus is very helpful - to make a judgment. Some knowledge / experience, re: the pictured referent, is also very helpful but not always necessary.
In any event, while it is apparent that photographs can lie/distort, that fact does not mean that all photographs lie or distort. To assume that all photographs lie or distort is, IMO, a bit like throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Any thoughts / opinions?
Reader Comments (4)
Are we back to picturing what we see vs. a "made" picture?
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." (Attributed to Anaïs Nin)
As we all know our eyes don't see anything. They just register electro-magnetic waves. It is our brain/mind that constructs a visual world based on this (and the „data“ that our other senses deliver). It's what "I" sees. Interestingly enough the photographic „apparatus“ and especially the digital apparatus works in a very similar manor: the sensor registers electro-magnetic waves and some software transforms this into - no, not into a world but into something that looks so similar to what our psychophysical apparatus knows as (its) visual world that in a first naive reaction we take it as if it was the same. But as soon as we realize that a picture normally is two-dimensional while we normally see the world tree-dimensionally we can know that a picture is something different. Nonetheless it is an almost unavoidable first reaction to take a photographic picture as real as we take our I‘s vision as real. To me it is exactly this tension between the similarity (of what we see and how it was produced) and the difference that makes the fascination of photography, that is the making and viewing of photographic images. (Please be patient with my german English)
Truth in photography has always been about faithful reproduction of what the camera sees, not what the human eye sees. But, the concept of truth in photographs has become fuzzy in the digital age.
Simple automated film cameras spoke a lot of truth to me. Other than framing and maybe zooming, little creative input was used. The film was developed in a standardized chemical process, and most pictures were printed by an automated lab.
In the digital age each and every camera model is also a "darkroom", were each image is heavily modified by software on the fly. In some instances this means that you can make images truer to life than ever before, but also the opposite is true, so photography has lost much of its purity or innocence if you will.
One can still talk about degrees of truth in photographs, but I find it hard to trust any image in the digital age. Getting away with a lie is just too easy and everybody seems to do it in their pursuit of the "disneyesqe" world they want to portray. These digitized images are just one more ingredient in the artificial and shallow mix we call popular/modern culture and the myth of progress is alive and well.
Two different shots taken, it seems, from slightly different standpoints. I prefer the one with the wires – it gives me a better "feel" of the place – all those wires on the left just beg for an extension across the picture.