Photographs: Truths and Lies

<p>Photographs tell deep truths. They speak [<em>metaphor</em>] to us intimately. They can portray an expression or a gesture, a story or a moment that strikes within a core of feeling and/or thinking. We say to ourselves, "Yes, I know." "Yes, I've been there." "Yes, I get it." Or we just nod (or shake) our heads. A portrait has so much power that it can even elicit from sitters something newly learned about themselves. "I never saw myself quite that way, but it's so true, so me." Photo as revelation . . . to subject, to photographer, to viewer.</p>

<p>And they lie. They don't quite accurately represent reality.* [<em>By reality, I just mean what the photo is of, what the light was striking when the shutter clicked. Reality might be all in our heads, might be out there, might be fixed and immutable, might be ever-changing. It might even be a myth; there may be no such thing.</em>] Sometimes they are downright fakes, in a perfectly good way.</p>

<p>*This is on a continuum, some do much more than others. Forensic, photojournalistic, and documentary, among other types of photographs, would want to lie as little as possible, though any of these are capable of lying, and not in a value-neutral way.</p>

<p>I have created some portraits out of whole cloth. My subject and I have created a look, a persona, set up a situation. Lighting can be providing the expression that seems to be coming from the subject. Color can be the gesture that gets interpreted as the subject's. Blur can give what the subject did not. Still, in these photos, there is often something genuine coming from the sitter. But that genuineness can be set up to portray something different than what it was like at the time. This is the wonderfulness of <strong>artificiality</strong> in making photographs. This is expressing not necessarily what would accurately reflect the moment of capture, but what will become the expression of the photograph. This is not the freezing of a memory. It is the creation of a future. In this way, the photograph may rely on its <em>seeming</em> (often considered <em>illusion</em> as opposed to reality in the history of Western philosophy) more than on what <em>was</em>.</p>

<p>So, you get a truth, but not necessarily a truth that took place when the photo was shot. Sure, on the surface, the camera captured what was there. But, more deeply, it did not. If you're good and so inclined, it captured what was <em>not</em> there.</p>

<p>That negation, that nothingness, can be a more significant truth.</p>

<p>photos speak 1000 words. and the truth is one cannot read such long text. :)</p>

<p>Fred,</p>

<p>If I make one of my airy-fairy posts here at the beginning of your thread it will kill it before it even gets started so I will try to keep this very short.</p>

<p>I would suggest that discussions of truth/lies are infinitely slippery and so it might be easier or more fruitful to talk about "new knowledge" -- what lies somewhere at the edge -- between the banal or what we know inside and out and are bored by, and noise/nonsense/nothingness. First, we would have to agree that there is such a thing as (meaningless) noise in a photograph (and we probably won't agree). Then at least we might know that what is interesting is what, as D.N. Rodowick describes as "art beyond knowledge, is also creation beyond information." Or, crudely, we're standing on the edge of meaning and *making/finding* knew knowledge (awareness?) out of the (previously) meaningless noise. Forming. By portraying or presenting things in a way which is contrary to what is expected/already known.</p>

<p>One last mysterious quote from Thomas Merton (who was talking about religion; I am thinking of it as being about "truth" in images): "Faith means doubt. Faith is not the suppression of doubt. It is the overcoming of doubt, and you overcome doubt by going through it. The man of faith who has never experienced doubt is not a man of faith,"</p>

<p>In other words (for my purposes), go into doubt; "break" the "known" -- a little or a lot -- in order to find or confirm or expand that known (faith/truth).</p>

I couldn't read past the first paragraph. Too bad there wasn't a question in it.

<p>Fiction is lies that tell us the truth.</p>

<p>I can make cars threaten a church by angling things right.</p>

<p>If we confine ourselves to photos which were taken with a purpose then almost all of them have an agenda - to express what the photographer wants the photo to express. So, news photos show the politician as noble or stupid depending on the politics of the paper or TV station. Gossip columns are filled with shots of the glamorous being glamorous. Or to fill column inches they push the idol off the pedestal by showing them looking bedraggled and ordinary. Always an agenda.</p>

<p>So to me photos perhaps don't so much tell deep truths or lies about the subject or even about myyself as about themotives of the photographer and their agenda. So when I see a portrait by Fred Goldsmith I don't ask myself, 'What deep truth is expressed here?' but more likely, 'I wonder why Fred wanted to shoot it like that?'</p>

<p>Or do those two questions tend to the same answer?</p>

<p>To view it non-dualistically ( <em>The Truth</em> ), the only difference between a truth and a lie is that they are simply two ways of looking at one thing. In a photograph the truth is always evidenced through that what is photographed, even though what's evidenced ( the photograph as a document ) may be a lie. And also the truth may be suggested in a photograph, certain ideas being triggered by that which is evidenced ; by the subject that is being photographed and the way it is photographed. Those ideas will flourish by use of imagination, which is neither lie nor truth >> = <em>always elusive</em>.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>but what will become the expression of the photograph</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I like that, <em>the expression of the photograph.</em> I photographed a friend not too long ago, she didn't liked the way she looked in the pictures. Maybe I photographed myself a bit too much through her ( I think I did, couldn't help myself not to ), and the balance between subject/photographer became unbalanced. I should have told her that it was not about her, not about me, but about the expression of the photograph.</p>

<p>It seems not so constructive to talk about a photographer's ability to tell "a" truth (I use quotes, there, because I dislike the constructs built atop the shaky notion that <em>A</em> is not <em>A</em>) without first making at least a minor side trip to assign meaning to the word "truth."<br /><br />Fred: would you, please?</p>

<p><strong>Umesh</strong>, thanks for bringing up that good old saw, "a picture is worth 1000 words." I know you're being tongue-in-cheek, but I will say that reading or writing 1000 words of text never was difficult for me. ;)))<br /> <strong>Julie</strong>, for me, photography, philosophy, and discussions about photography are slippery. I want them to be slippery. That's part of the reason I approached this post as I did. And whatever terms responders such as yourself choose to put their thoughts in are fine with me. I often frame my thoughts in these discussions in such a way as to leave things open enough for personal interpretations to flourish and creativity of the other posters to thrive. That you've come up with "new knowledge" as an alternative is part of the reason I participate here. You open my eyes a little. My own difference with how I read your post is your emphasis on knowledge. The way I, at least, use "truth" here is as much in terms of an emotional depth and recognition as a conceptual one. Now go get all airy fairy on us. We can handle it!<br /> <strong>Craig</strong>, oh, Craig.<br /> <strong>Rebecca</strong>, we seem to be on the same page.<br /> <strong>Colin</strong>, I agree with you . . . to an extent. I am often aware that a photograph is telling me more about the perspective (which is often an "agenda" but often more benign) of the photographer than a "truth," as it were. But that more often seems to come to me in an analytical stage. I guess I would feel that if I were constantly aware of photos of a particular photographer being just their perspective or agenda, especially on my first gut reaction, I might consider them not as effective photographers as when the photographs really seem to have a ring of truth to me, a more universally-applicable emotional or conceptual quality (which can still be quite personal). So, if most people reacted as you do (and if I reacted as you do) to my photos, I'd begin to question myself. Or I might simply question the way you relate to them. I think one can feel the presence of a personal perspective while also reaching beyond that perspective to a more all-encompassing place . . . transcendence.<br /> <strong>Phylo</strong>, good point about them being two ways of looking at one thing. I can relate. And, thanks, I've long been considering how different the photograph is from the moment, how different a facial expression is from a photographic facial expression, and how differently light affects me from how photographic light affects me. I think you're using "expression of the photograph" as coming from a different perspective than either the subject or the photographer. And that's part of what I'm getting at in my response to Colin.<br /> <strong>Matt</strong>, sorry, no. A definition of truth would be a philosophical post in itself, a lengthy and potentially unwieldy conversation, and would likely get us far afield from photographs. Rather than begin with definitions (which, I think, can be a bad way to start, because it attempts to fix a discussion . . . though admittedly there have been times I've done it for one reason or another . . . but with a word like "truth," I think not), I'd rather work toward constructing the thread. Rather than "define" truth, let's just discuss our usages of it relative to photography. I feel I've put enough out in the OP to give a sense of what I'm talking about and to leave enough room for the experiences and insights of others to flesh out helpful and significant ways of talking about these matters.</p>

<p>I think most photographs have more affirmation than negation. Just my perspective as curious viewer.</p>

<p>Fred, I derailed from your thesis at your first sentence (I say thesis but really intend postulate, as a thesis requires an unequivocal equation capable of being turned at some point into a law)</p>

<p>"Photographs tell deep truths."</p>

<p>Why should we assume that? It is infinitely easier to distinguish photographs that tell lies, but "deep truths"? I know none. I do know photographs that communicate what the artist is intending and even sometimes not intending. I know others that speak to elements of beauty or surprise or anguish or hope or despair, and so on. These are not "deep truths" but simply images of some significance and which contain values of a particular observer/creator, the artist, or on the other hand, of the perceiver /viewer.</p>

<p>Philosophy is perhaps a search for truths, but not a conveyor of them. Paintings, photographs, writings, music, sculpture, dance and architecture are also explorations of values and communication which are hardly ever, perhaps never, what you refer to as deep truths. For me it is not the question of "getting a truth", but simply communicating via a photograph or series of photographs a value or some combination thereof. For the honest and sincere practitioner, his works might well exprees his values and be devoid of lies, for him, but not examples of deep truths. </p>

 

 

<p><strong>Umesh: </strong>Fred is delightfully wordy, and rhapsodizes, sometimes eloquently, about himself. To you and Craig, here's advice: If the PN-format "question" isn't in the first paragraph, and your attention span is straining, race down to the last one. It's usually never in the middle.</p>

<p><strong>Fred: "</strong> I will say that reading or writing 1000 words of text never was difficult for me. ;)))"</p>

<p> Speaking of Deep Truths...:-)</p>

<p><strong>Julie</strong>: Photography, philosophy, and discussions about photography are diverse and often difficult. Julie knows this better than most of us. I read Julie's "new knowledge"and her intensely personal voyage of self-discovery as a kind of Neo-Gnosis. It's not something that I put nearly that much emphasis on, but I engage in it, and find Julie's challenging thoughts, teases and scoldings like being in a saltwater taffy machine. When I emerge, I'm looser and sweeter!</p>

<p><strong>Rebecca</strong>, we almost never seem to be on the same page, but I read every word and think about what you have to say.</p>

<p><strong>Colin</strong>, In life, we simultaneously inhabit multiple levels of existence in everything we do. I agree with you, but think there's much more.</p>

<p><strong>Phylo</strong>, Thanks for often refining and clarifying ideas expressed here, and for making fine discriminations, without always defaulting to lecturing about your own work or making it too personal.</p>

<p><strong>Dana</strong>, I agree with you from the angle of Robert Adams (as found in his excellent small book, <em>Why We Photograph). </em>Whatever else it may be, most photography is an affirmation of life.<em><br /></em></p>

<p><strong>Arthur</strong> By calmly and gently calling us out on our assumptions and other matters, you keep us on an even keel and ground us (without tying us down).</p>

 

<p> Some people lie, some tell the truth. Photographers are people, therefore some photographers lie, some tell the truth. Photographs as media can carry these energies. Photographs per se, can neither lie nor tell the truth. They can only transform.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>As human beings, we seem to live in a permanent tension between what we want and what other people want (the poor old guy who wanted women in high heels and short skirts probably never considered that the appeal of what heels do to calf muscles is to show allusions to orgasm). </p>

<p>Our fantasies have to avoid killing us directly (Ghost Dancers or any other belief system that says it can protect against bullets and other projectiles). If the fantasies make our lives more bearable, they're as much truths as anything as cruel as physical limits on elephants stumbling in the dark.</p>

<p>I don't even think photographs can transform -- and we haven't considered film where the light is dotted on with something like a laser, or people who can write jpeg code. We let art impact us or not depending on the social systems we subscribe to, which are fine as long as they serve us. It's always our decision to see or not see, and to even imagine what's not really necessarily there (see accounts of wine tastings and the self-deceptions that can be actually measured).</p>

<p>If the reality of the photograph, or any art, is in our mental agility to find meaning, does this matter?</p>

<p>(I think there's always at least some projection in art, but it doesn't explain everything).</p>

<blockquote>

<p>A definition of truth would be a philosophical post in itself, a lengthy and potentially unwieldy conversation, and would likely get us far afield from photographs.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>philosophy, when you get down to it, deals with the meaning of life. As soon as one understands there is no meaning to life one can propose anything ;-)<br>

Truth in photography at its best is a fluid concept. You frame it and as such create your own "truth". Phylo perhaps said it best:<em> "Maybe I photographed myself a bit too much through her" <br /></em><br>

In that context there is neither truth nor lie in photography.</p>

<p><strong>Dana</strong>, I understand that perspective and appreciate your sharing it.<br /> <strong>Arthur</strong>, <em>we</em> shouldn't assume it. <em>I</em> stated it and it's how <em>I</em> was thinking. I didn't intend it as a thesis, didn't intend it as something to be proved or assumed . . . just a starting point for where I was going. I like hearing how you think of photography.<br /> <strong>Luis</strong>, for me these forums are about me, my work, how my thinking relates to my work, and it's about others' ideas and the relationship of those to their work. I assume that, for you, they are about more than me. <br /> <strong>Rebecca</strong>, you lost me on this one.<br /> <strong>Ton</strong>, truth has fluidity, yes, and not just in photography. Frame is important both to photography and truth. I don't see truth as only my own, photographically or otherwise. I think truths are shared.</p>

<p>Please don't leave point of view out of all this. Consider the gymnast performing a floor routine. She is able to observe her surroundings through the entire sequence of twists, jumps and flips. At the end she has an entire sequence of points of view that can be guaranteed to be different from anything spectators in the galleries saw.</p>

<p>Each point of view is selective. It has an orientation and a focus. They are all true in the sense that viewer is not fabricating any of her experience. But there's a certain arbitrariness about them. You can't see everything at once, especially with a limiting device such as a camera to filter what you see. What's more, everything is in motion at the same time. So point of view is a way for the mind to simplify things for an instant to get a better grasp on them. But they keep on moving just the same.</p>

<p>Turning something over in a mind. Flips and turns. Selective visual judgement. The equipment is neutral. Post-processing for many is inevitable. The point of view is the thing. As soon as you think you know what something is, why it's something else!</p>

<p>Perhaps Fred really does see the unseen life beneath the surface of his subjects in his photographs. This would feel pretty amazing when it happens. I'm afraid I'm pretty ordinary when it comes to this sort of thing. When I look out over the ocean I don't see the whales swimming way under the surface except in my imagination.</p>

<p>Things like "reality" and "truth" suggest a certainty about things I think of as mostly unfounded. It suggests an insensitivity to detail and complexity that inevitably leads more to confusion than anything else. As soon as you start talking about the truth beneath the surface, you assert that you have at your disposal an awfully good, just about dead-on, explanation for what it is all about. Truth doesn't do anyone much good without a good story that you actually believe to support it.</p>

<p>So what is the truth found in the sitter's eyes? How can you tell? How do you tell a viewer, a stranger as it were, what you mean? If it's hard to figure out what truth a photo conveys to you, how much harder is it to figure out what the part that was left out might have done? </p>

<p><strong>Albert</strong>,</p>

<p>But some pictures are good or better or .... something more, more, <em>more</em> than others. What might that "more" be? Because we here on Photo.net are spending enormous amounts of time (threads, critiques, galleries; wars!) trying to find that "more." To your "How can ... How do ... It's hard ... " ending paragraph, yes! Exactly!</p>

<p>I think Roland Barthes on myths (from his collection, <em>Mythologies</em> (1957) is relevant to lies/truth because myths may be just the kind of lies that Fred is interested in turning inside out. (Quote-haters, don't look below!) He's talking about "myth" in the sense of socially assumed truths -- not of fantasies.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>... Myth hides nothing and flaunts nothing: it distorts; myth is neither a lie nor a confession: it is an inflexion.</p>

<p>... The function of myth is to empty reality: it is, literally, a ceaseless flowing out, a haemorrhage, or perhaps an evaporation, in short a perceptible absence.</p>

<p>... every day and everywhere, man is stopped by myths, referred by them to this motionless prototype which lives in his place, stifles him in the manner of a huge internal parasite and assigns to his activity the narrow limits within which he is allowed to suffer without upsetting the world: bourgeois pesudo-pysis is in the fullest sense a prohibition for man against inventing himself. Myths are nothing but this ceaseless, untiring solicitation, this insidious and inflexible demand that all men recognize themselves in this image, eternal yet bearing a date, which was built of them one day as if for all time.</p>

<p>... Myth is a <em>value</em>, truth is no guarantee for it; nothing prevents it from being a perpetual alibi; it is enough that its signifier has two sides for it always to have an 'elsewhere' at its disposal. The meaning is always there to <em>present</em> the form; the form is always there to <em>outdistance</em> the meaning. And there never is any contradiction, conflict, or split between the meaning and the form: they are never at the same place. ... in the mythical signifier, its form is empty but present, its meaning absent but full.</p>

<p> </p>

</blockquote>

<p><strong>Luis</strong>: "It's not something that I put nearly that much emphasis on ... " Slacker! [*<em>snapping my bullwhip</em>*]</p>

<p>Also, I meant to say in the previous:</p>

<p>The biggest liar of all -- the most common, the most subversive (we look right through it; it gets in undetected), and often the most unintentional -- is color.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>---the only difference between a truth and a lie is that they are simply two ways of looking at one thing. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's only what the guy who doesn't benefit from the truth will say. There is only <strong>1 truth</strong> and EVERYTHING else is a lie. I will concede that we humans propose mostly opinions ... some closer to, others further from the Truth.</p>

<p>But let's quit pretending that "calling" a fish a bird makes them a bird. It makes us a liar. And it makes those who believe us fools.</p>

<p> Calling a fish a bird is not anymore a lie as calling a fish a fish is <em>the truth</em>, both are simply descriptions and constructs of language which we use to point to the world around us and accept or don't accept as such.The universe, <em>reality</em>, is not involved in dualisms and notions of truth and lie, good and evil,.... Those are concepts and chains of language. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>There is only <strong >1 truth</strong> and EVERYTHING else is a lie.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>There is only ONE. The opposites we create in it are labels, different ways of looking at and pointing to that one thing.</p>

<p>I think it's fair to say that Thomas's fish/bird example wasn't about the use of the <em>labels</em>, but rather about actually representing a fish as a bird (regardless of the words you use). Implying that something is what it is not ... that's not the truth at work. There are two flavors of this: ignorance/mistake, and deliberate deception. <br /><br />As you point out, Phylo, the universe doesn't really give a damn one way or the other. It just <em>is.</em> People can communicate about the universe - through prose, photography, potato carvings, whatever - all they want, and say anything they want. Asserting a false reality doesn't change the real one, and misrepresenting reality (through ignorance or malice) doesn't change it either. Though it might change one's relationship with the audience to whom one's communicating.<br /><br />The notion of "different truths" has always seemed silly on the face of it. 2 + 2 will continue to equal 4 regardless of one's personal take on it. A bird is a bird, whether or not you use the word "fish" to describe it.<br /><br />I find that people deploy the word "truth" - as it's used in the context of this thread - as a sort of pre-emptive maneuver to disarm another's possible questioning of their earnestness or coherence of the premises used to construct their world view. Earnestly selling the notion of multiple truths (multiple <em>realities</em>) means adopting a fantasy world view, where reality is maleable, and facts are subject to magic or mere whim.<br /><br />This has nothing to do with the wildly different conclusions about what some aspect of reality means, in the context of a given person's life. Take a stew of facts (say, the reality of someone's age, appearance, place, circumstance, and a thousand other little details) and freeze them in a two-dimensional photograph. Every viewer, asked to derive some "truth" from that photograph will, mentally, start constructing a back story, a context, and some future possibilities based on what they see. An artist may use visual symbols and other tools to shape and steer that process, at least for viewers that share the same visual vocabulary.<br /><br />They (the audience) will go through that process in the context of their own experiences, and may feel quite solid in their conclusions. It's too complex a task, and too contextual a one, to expect any two people to land in the same place as viewers of the photograph. But that doesn't mean there are two <em>truths</em>, only that there are too many variables and possibilities to bother using that word at all, in such a way. Just because something resonates between artist and audience doesn't make <em>true</em> what has been communicated<em>. </em>We can speak about the reality of that experience, but that isn't the same as measuring the reality (or bearing on reality) of what was communicated.</p>

<p>My feelings about truth is that it does not (and probably will not) exist, only our humble approximations to it and subjective evaluations of it. The search for truth, whether in a photograph or elsewhere, is a noble or at very least worthwhile pursuit. I applaud Fred for searching for that in his work. I think we are really only showing at best our personal values and emotions. In respect to reality, truth and portraiture, some of the more challenging thoughts I have read on the subject belong to the deceased French philosopher Barthes, when speaking to portraiture and other photographic realisations in his "Camera Lucida".</p>

<p><strong>Albert: </strong>I agree that POV is critical in many respects. Photographs, if nothing else, describe coordinates for the observer and the observed.</p>

<p><strong>Phylo: "</strong>There is only ONE."</p>

<p>OK, I'll bite...<em>what </em>is it? And how do you know that?</p>

<p><strong>Fred: "</strong><strong>Luis</strong>, for me these forums are about me, my work, how my thinking relates to my work, and it's about others' ideas and the relationship of those to their work. I assume that, for you, they are about more than me."</p>

<p> Relax, Fred, I know all that, and you ought to know by now that I specially enjoy reading your Super-sized posts. Whether you know it or not, you're a natural at branding, and that's a compliment. I still can't understand how you can rule out decision-making for God(s), though.</p>

<p><strong>Julie: "</strong>The biggest liar of all -- the most common, the most subversive (we look right through it; it gets in undetected), and often the most unintentional -- is color."</p>

<p> It doesn't fib, our perception of it is <em>relational</em>, not absolute. As to the looking through it and detecting part, for any artist, the hardest thing is to see the things we're desensitized to. The things under our noses.</p>

<p>[bullwhip? At least you chose the right tool for the job, linguistically speaking.]</p>

<p><strong>Matt: </strong>Being a tiny subset of the universe, information-theory-wise I can't know with much resolution if it gives a damn or not.</p>

<p><strong>Arthur: </strong>In agreement with most of that last post, but truth, like any strange attractant or muse of human attention & imagination, helps to motivate people to get work done. Much like the grain of sand at the core of every pearl.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><strong>Albert</strong>, thanks for re-emphasizing perspective. It's significant to photographing and framing. I'm struck by your use of camera as "limiting device," yet simultaneously want to reject it in favor of "freeing device." I see the camera and frame as having two roles: 1) walling off, separating the scene seen through the lens from the rest of the world, isolating the photo to be observed; it is a perspective, 2) the creation of a new world, with limitless possibilities. And, yes, what happens when I'm making some photographs and shooting some subjects does feel amazing, really like no other feeling I have. The reason I was hesitant about Julie's emphasis on knowledge is because photographic truth to me doesn't have to do, as you have suggested, with "explanation." It has to do with seeing. I agree wholeheartedly with the story part of your description of photography and truth. As for the stranger, I don't tell her what I mean. I show her the photograph.</p>

<p><strong>Julie</strong>, I'll leave you to defend your observations about color, though I like the spirit of what you're saying. For now, though, I seem to have enough on my plate. LOL. Barthe's insightful use of the word "alibi" is helpful. A good photographic experience, for me, whether from the making or viewing point of view, will free me of previous dependencies, will undercut my excuses, dare I say "rock my world." Not only will special photos do that for me, but taking up photography seriously has done a number on the myths and assumptions I've lived by.</p>

<p><strong>Thomas</strong>, you've got me hooked! 1 truth. Now spill it.</p>

<p><strong>Phylo</strong>, though it's not my way of thinking, I like how you edited "There is only <strong>1 truth</strong>" into "There is only ONE." It's crafty and meaningful, both visually and conceptually.</p>

<p>I thank you for catching the dualisms, which I usually prefer to avoid. By way of excuse, I'll say that posing the dualism was a starting point. But you can look to Julie's notion of myth to see a little disingenuousness in that alibi. Our language is built around dualisms and it's hard to shake them but I think ultimately truth and lie folds in upon itself. Preliminarily, however, and in terms we're used to, I still think it's OK to use them somewhat dialectically remembering that they will be changed as we approach the finish line (that really isn't a finish line at all).</p>

<p><strong>Matt</strong>, you say, <em>"</em><em>Implying that something is what it is not ... that's not the truth at work."</em> I agree. That's what started me off: that I don't imply that the photograph is the moment of shooting, that I don't imply that the facial expression in the photograph is the facial expression of the subject at the time of shooting, that I don't imply that the framed gesture or framed lighting is the gesture or lighting that existed at some other time and in some other place. That, for me, what's true of a photograph is not necessarily what was true of that reality through which the photograph was created, though those two worlds have a key relationship. [<em>"the expression of the photograph"</em> ]</p>

<p>2 + 2 is never the complete truth without asserting which mathematics, particularly which measurement scale, one is using. It must always be qualified, even if that qualification isn't stated out loud, but rather silently assumed. Every truth assumes a context within which it's true.</p>

<p>I learned a while back not to worry too much about the motives behind what people were saying here. Understanding, deconstructing, learning from, and challenging people's ideas gives me plenty of meat without what would usually for me be guessing at why they said what they said.</p>

<p>Getting back to thoughts, however, you are right, I do think reality is malleable. That's a great word for it.</p>

<p>I love your description of the photographer and all the viewers seeing the photograph. If that doesn't describe reality, what does? What's left out of your description that would be the supposedly one real description that would defy all the malleability? Who gets to know and use that description? You claim that multiple notions of truth is some kind of magic, some kind of subversive maneuver (and I'm by no means unwilling to make subversive maneuvers). If, from your graphic description of the viewers and the photograph they are all seeing differently, you can't extract the "real" and "true" description, what good is your assumption of one reality or one truth? Why is your non-description any less magical?</p>

<p><strong>Arthur</strong>, the <em>search</em>, big smile. I talked to Phylo about the finish line but it's not as important as running the race. Since my days of being a reckless college student in the early 70s, earnestly trampling on as many myths as I could, I've had a little pink postcard either on my desk or my bookshelf that reads: "I have abandoned my search for truth and am now looking for a good fantasy."</p>

<p><strong>Luis</strong>, we were writing simultaneously (my posts take a while to think through, so it happens a lot -- LOL) so I haven't fully absorbed what you said but appreciate your followup. I get a little self-conscious (at best, self aware) sometimes. It's tough when you put yourself in the hot seat of initiating a thread. You become a bit of a target. As you surmise, not a position that doesn't suit me on many levels, but still sometimes a bit tricky to wade through. Everyone should try it.</p>