Can a photograph ever be the truth?

<p>"Ode on a Grecian Urn," John Keats.<br>

*****<br>

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.laprogressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/kent-state.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.laprogressive.com/tampa-convention/&h=248&w=350&sz=77&tbnid=clR-ZiVmxaLt9M:&tbnh=89&tbnw=126&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dkent%2Bstate%2Bshooting%2Bphotos%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=kent+state+shooting+photos&usg=__YhxY9fNuFgBKl-snPrvytrjBuTY=&docid=Cf_I71jjwiNa0M&sa=X&ei=cOFVUcXVL4bH0QGNwYHIDg&ved=0CDsQ9QEwAw&dur=129<br>

http://imranhkhan.com/category/afghanistan/</p>

 

<p>No. Unless it happens to be for a certain viewer. So don't worry about it.</p>

<p>First you have to define "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth">truth</a>". That should take no more than a couple of millennia.</p>

<p>All a photograph can be is a photograph.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"(...) Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. In consequence of this mere nominal definition, my cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object. Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only </em>by cognizing it<em>. Hence my cognition is supposed to confirm itself, which is far short of being sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me, the cognition in me, all I can ever pass judgement on is whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of the object.</em> <em>The ancients called such a circle in explanation a</em> diallelon<em>. And actually the logicians were always reproached with this mistake by the sceptics, who observed that with this definition of truth it is just as when someone makes a statement before a court and in doing so appeals to a witness with whom no one is acquainted, but who wants to establish his credibility by maintaining that the one who called him as witness is an honest man. The accusation was grounded, too. Only the solution of the indicated problem is impossible without qualification and for every man. (...)"</em><br /> <em><strong>Immanuel Kant</strong></em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=vietnam+official+killing+vietcong&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=6uVVUcuuNoTE0gHd4ICYAw&biw=1634&bih=895&sei=7-VVUfiwEI3W0gG2tYC4BQ#imgrc=ZpLwnLoEaRBEGM%3A%3B6vUgtV2teNnuNM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fm7.i.pbase.com%252Fo2%252F98%252F316398%252F1%252F118045027.M5OV7kmq.4.Murderof_ms1968.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.pbase.com%252Fomoses%252Fimage%252F118045027%3B500%3B363</p>

<p>http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=vietnam+official+killing+vietcong&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=6uVVUcuuNoTE0gHd4ICYAw&biw=1634&bih=895&sei=7-VVUfiwEI3W0gG2tYC4BQ#imgrc=ZpLwnLoEaRBEGM%3A%3B6vUgtV2teNnuNM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fm7.i.pbase.com%252Fo2%252F98%252F316398%252F1%252F118045027.M5OV7kmq.4.Murderof_ms1968.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.pbase.com%252Fomoses%252Fimage%252F118045027%3B500%3B363</p>

<p>Ahhh... but BEAUTY?</p>

<p>Ahhh... but BEAUTY?</p>

<p>Yes, but it would be the photographer's version of the truth.</p>

<p><<<Ahhh... but BEAUTY?>>></p>

<p>Regarding the horrific images your link provided, consider the difference between a beautiful event and a picture of a beautiful event and a beautiful picture of an event. Then consider the difference between a photo that has a certain kind of beauty and a beautiful thing that is photographed. Beautiful pictures can be of horrible things. See some of the <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t8P_JtxwLHg/UUVGkLEgynI/AAAAAAAAK8c/Q6MUTEBrdrg/s1600/134027__triumph_l+TRiumph+of+the+will+image+nazis.jpg">Nazi photos of Leni Riefenstahl</a>.</p>

<p>My own take on truth is that there are different sorts of usages of that word. Some photos can capture a very deep kind of personal or human truth. In many instances, there's a difference between truth and accuracy, and many conflate the two when talking about photos. There are senses of truth that are limited to accuracy, but many are not.</p>

<p>There are also senses of beauty that are limited to something's being pretty or pleasing. There are many deeper senses of beauty as well.</p>

A more important question: can our eyes and memory every capture and remember the truth? Visible light is a small

portion of all possible wavelengths. The rest we are utterly blind to.

 

We can't see color in the dark, whereas a camera can. Our minds manipulate color perception to the degree that a red apple looks the same to us on a sunny day as on a cloudy day, when clearly that is not accurate. Call it unintentional auto white balance.

 

Eyewitness testimony is historically unreliable. Memory is easily influenced by suggestion, emotion, and personal

preference.

 

We ignore most of what is in our field if vision focusing typically on the center section of what our eyes pick up. What we

think we see is a processed combination of two concurrent video feeds that yields a 3D simulation. Our eyes work more

like video cameras, anyway, streaming from moment to moment instead of freezing moments in time as a still camera

does.

 

Given all of the above, why would anyone worry about "truth" from a camera? We need to consider our own perceptual weaknesses first.

 

See also this earlier discussion.

 

http://www.photo.net/casual-conversations-forum/00bT4u

<p>Possibly, but as this is a very rare occurence, if it occurs at all (perhaps scientific photographs are closest to truth, as they possibly at best show little or no biais and thus come the closest to avoiding the imposition of variable human values).</p>

<p>Given that, why bother with the role of photography in the search for, or recognition of, a truth? Perhaps at best it can represent one view of a reality. Even the most objective histories are not safe from revisionism, and may in themselves be termed that.</p>

<p>The beauty is that photography can be many things other than a means of establishing or showing truth. In that sense, it is a very human and often wonderful medium of personal expression, and occasionally, art.</p>

I suggest that a photograph has many truths concurrently. The question might better be "which truth do you want to

see?"

<p><<<<em>The beauty is that photography can be many things other than a means of establishing or showing truth. In that sense, it is a very human and often wonderful medium of personal expression . . .</em> >>></p>

<p>Arthur, isn't there <em>truth</em> in much personal expression? (If truth is not only used to convey accuracy, that is.) Are you thinking of truth as, in some sense, "facts in the world"? Are there not other senses of truth that photos can, indeed, express?</p>

<p>_______________________________________</p>

<p>Were I to phrase the question, I'd probably ask, "What kinds of truth can photos convey?"</p>

<p>That is certainly one of the most powerful photos ever taken, and a cutting indictment of the insanity and inhumanity of war. We've all noticed how this government in the U.S. has taken a very fascist approach to war images, and they are all essentially censored now. The War Department decides who sees what. As for Lance Armstrong, he has discredit himself so thoroughly that calling anything by him inspirational is laughable.</p>

<p>I wonder where this association between truth and photography came from? A photograph gives us an image. That image is interpreted by each individual through their culture, conditioning, prejudices, and the particular situation in which the image is viewed. One person's truth is another person's fable. It's important to understand that truth is not empirical, it stands alone. It's easier to grasp if it's looked at for what it isn't, rather than for what it is. Or, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth. Truth is something else, and can't be gotten to through logic or formulas.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>--O friend who seekest vainly, not in shadowy temples<br /> but among the fields, beneath<br />outspreading trees, upon the bosom of the<br />waters, lies the occult heart of thy desire.<br />For Truth, alone, does not exist. Seek Beauty<br />if thou desirest peace.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><em>EPHEMERA</em><br />GREEK PROSE POEMS<br />MITCHELL S. BUCK<br /> http://archive.org/details/ephemeragreek00buckrich</p>

<p>Fred, I agree that truth via personal expression is attempted in photography and a property of it as much as that of any other form of art or communication. I wonder, though, how much of that gets through to the final image. What is perceived, imagined or felt by the photographer, or what truth he discovers via his curious lens, may go into its making, but does the image always display that (those) quality? There is an illusiveness in capturing and creating an image, whatever truths there may be that lie behind its imagining and which may motivate the photographer.</p>

<p>Think about the truths told about war through photos, the truths about the depression that Lange's photos showed, the truths told about peppers that Weston showed us and so many of us felt, the truths about 2-year-olds' birthday parties, the truths about abusiveness Nan Goldin showed, the truths that the photos of Abu Ghraib showed that the world became privy to. Yes, I think often a shared truth happens as the result of a great photo. This kind of truth is not necessarily about facts on the ground. It's about deep human emotional states and connections. What do we mean when we say "true" love? It's not the merely actuality of love. It's the depth of it.</p>

<p>Only for a fraction of a second (typically). It may be the truth from one perspective. It may be a partial truth, at best, since it records in one medium only.</p>

<p>Abu Ghraib is a very powerful example, Fred, as were some key images published during the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, etc. Truth isn't always what we want to see, but still photographs have a way of making reality seem undeniable.</p>

Of Truth

 

"What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and

count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers

of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much

blood in them, as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor, which men take in finding out of

truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural though

corrupt love, of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians, examineth the matter, and is at a stand, to think what

should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as with

the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell; this same truth, is a naked, and open day-light, that doth not show

the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs, of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps

come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that

showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out

of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would

leave the minds, of a number of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to

themselves?

 

One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum doemonum, because it filleth the imagination; and yet, it is but

with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that

doth the hurt; such as we spake of before. But, howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments, and

affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of

it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign

good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last, was the

light of reason; and his sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed light, upon the face of

the matter or chaos; then he breathed light, into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light, into the face of

his chosen. The poet, that beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a

pleasure, to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure, to stand in the window of a castle,

and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage

ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and

wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling,

or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the

poles of truth.

 

To pass from theological, and philosophical truth, to the truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged, even by those that

practise it not, that clear, and round dealing, is the honor of man's nature; and that mixture of falsehoods, is like alloy in

coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding, and crooked

courses, are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice, that

doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false and perfidious. And therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he

inquired the reason, why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge? Saith he, If it be well

weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men. For a lie

faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood, and breach of faith, cannot possibly be so highly

expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal, to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; it being foretold,

that when Christ cometh, he shall not find faith upon the earth." - Francis Bacon