Photography and Truth

I have always tried to teach that truth in photography does not come from the photograph itself but from the person who made it and that a photograph is just a photograph. But people will always try to convince us otherwise. When photography was invented, the problem was convincing people that the physical picture was real. Once people came around to the idea that you could capture someone's 'likeness' in a photograph, they would often believe what the photograph was telling them. Of course, that didn't stop early photographers from trying to fool people, especially when things like spiritualism were rife during the 1850's.

We are programmed to believe what we see in a photograph as truth, none more so than documentary photography. Despite this, it took several years for newspapers to realize that the only way to combat adjusted digital files was to accept RAW images. All fine and dandy for printed matter, but what about online content? In short, the digital image can never be trusted to give us a more 'truthful' image. AI has added a new layer of lies to what we consider truth in an image, in that there will most likely come a time when we cannot tell the difference between reality and fiction, never mind whether it's true or not.

The only way we can get back to some truth in photography, and by this, I mean documentaries and telling the world what's going on, is to go back to film; Light and shadow captured onto film and printed. Yes, there will always be some manipulation, cropping, or angle of view, but it's better than the fake world we are heading for. Photography has often gone full circle, be it returning to film, or refusing to Photoshop, but unfortunately, we have turned a corner onto a one way street.