is photography supposed to be reality ?

[KenS]

A photograph might also best be described as 'two dimensional' record of a three-dimensional 'world'

Ken

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Word games. If you cloned a mustache on the photo and submitted as evidence, the judge would throw you into jail for perjury.

 

[MattKing]

Word games. If you cloned a mustache on the photo and submitted as evidence, the judge would throw you into jail for perjury.

Only if the presence of the mustache is "material" - a major component of the offence of perjury.
There needs to be an intention to mislead in a material way.
If you clone out or retouch out or dodge/burn/de-focus out a pimple on a face, it is the materiality of that pimple that matters to a judge.

 

[removed account4]

You have made me feel badly if you think that I have called into question your nearly 40 years of using light meter or sunny11. I did not. Clearly the picture was composed and exposed as you wished and perfectly well done for that picture. I was however suggesting if the tree trunk was the object then a better set of choices could have been made for that purpose; Just the tree trunk.
Even so, I still do, in fact, see the tree trunk, just to the left of the door is a white line and then to the left of that, black; the trunk. The fact that in between the tree and the lens is a combination of things, rain, twigs, mist, dirty window, what ever, does not make this a metaphysical photograph. Actually more of a pictorialist picture, I think

no worries bill !
sorry to have made you feel bad ..
not what i was attempting to do ..
i have been looking where you say the tree trunk is, can't see it
thankfully im going the eye doctor soon, maybe i'll have him look at it
as part of the exam i give him ! " dr please look at this photograph and point to the tree trunk"

pictorial i like that ! maybe some day ill do a gum over and think of our pal garo while im UV'ing it

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Word games. If you cloned a mustache on the photo and submitted as evidence, the judge would throw you into jail for perjury.

You're insisting on driving an epistemological debate of principles into the smallest, narrowest pragmatic terms possible. You're getting into the realm of object permanence - If you submitted the photo with the cloned mustache and I presented one without a mustache, and shaved my mustache so that I looked like the second photo, you would be in trouble only if you insisted that the one with the mustache was in fact NOT me. As if the addition of the mustache so fundamentally altered "ME" that it was incapable of representing me, or that with the mustache, I was incapable of BEING me, when in fact my identity is not in any way tied to the photograph with or without the mustache.

 

[markjwyatt]

A photograph might also best be described as 'two dimensional' record of a three-dimensional 'world'

Ken

Ever heard of Flatlanders?

 

[KenS]

Ever heard of Flatlanders?

Our two eyes (and the distance between) them is we can observe the three dimensionality of that which you are observing. If you close one eye you cannot Observe the three dimensionality Thus a camera with a single lens cannot provide three dimensionality

Ken

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

You're insisting on driving an epistemological debate of principles into the smallest, narrowest pragmatic terms possible. You're getting into the realm of object permanence - If you submitted the photo with the cloned mustache and I presented one without a mustache, and shaved my mustache so that I looked like the second photo, you would be in trouble only if you insisted that the one with the mustache was in fact NOT me. As if the addition of the mustache so fundamentally altered "ME" that it was incapable of representing me, or that with the mustache, I was incapable of BEING me, when in fact my identity is not in any way tied to the photograph with or without the mustache.

More word games. OK. Let's say the photographer photoshopped the knife out of the killer's hand? Would that be enough unreal and untruthful for you? If he lied about it on the stand, should the judge throw him in to jail for perjury?

 

[faberryman]

More word games. OK. Let's say the photographer photoshopped the knife out of the killer's hand? Would that be enough unreal and untruthful for you? If he lied about it on the stand, should the judge throw him in to jail for perjury?

Why the obsession with forensic photography?

 

[eddie]

is a photograph or photography ( generally speaking i don't care of the format, or language ( digital or analog )
supposed to be reality ?

It's supposed to be whatever the photographer wants it to be. Sometimes it's supposed to approach reality. Other times it's supposed to diverge from it. That's what makes it a great pursuit.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

More word games. OK. Let's say the photographer photoshopped the knife out of the killer's hand? Would that be enough unreal and untruthful for you? If he lied about it on the stand, should the judge throw him in to jail for perjury?

First of all, that kind of photo virtually never exists - for the photographer to have captured the knife in the killer's hands he would have had to be an accomplice to the crime or at least an accessory after the fact.

You're still falling into the trap of assuming photographs are trustworthy, and you accept them on face value. Yes they are capable of extreme precision of detail. That is where the insidious nature of their lie comes from - the fact that they are capable of extreme precision means that the small imprecisions are all the more pernicious because we don't question them and/or elide over them because we want to accept the precision as being total. It's comforting. But comfortable isn't reality - if anything it's a buffer against reality.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

One can do whatever they want with their photo. I'm in the minority it seems when it comes to deleting, substituting, or adding physical elements to the shot. My photo club members feel anything goes. I think there are many people like me though who when they see a "perfect" picture, wonder if it was less photographed and more made up in a digital program. If the latter, then it is no longer a photograph any more than a painting is.

 

[Dali]

OK, my pictures are 100% black & white. Do they make up reality? Most are rectangular, some are square. Is reality rectangular or square?

When I lith print, is it still "photography" or "painting" or ???

 

[Vaughn]

Photographs are part of reality. I do wonder about images created by electronic impulses and stored on a hard drive. I suppose potentiality is part of reality. too.

 

[faberryman]

Photographs are part of reality. I do wonder about images created by electronic impulses and stored on a hard drive. I suppose potentiality is part of reality. too.

Consciousness and thought are but electrical impulses.

 

[Vaughn]

Consciousness and thought are but electrical impulses.

But is what goes in our heads real? Or just a model of reality we create in our heads to be able to handle it? I vote for the latter with a nod to the reality that is in our heads. Fun stuff.

 

[faberryman]

But is what goes in our heads real?

Last time I checked it's the only reality we know.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

When the judge puts you in jail for lying about how you cloned out the knife in the killer's hand, you'll have plenty of time to think about what's real and unreal, truthful and untruthful.

 

[removed account4]

But is what goes in our heads real? Or just a model of reality we create in our heads to be able to handle it? I vote for the latter with a nod to the reality that is in our heads. Fun stuff.

as jack nicholson yelled " you cann't handle the truth !"
i think that is what happens in our minds too... there is some sort
of model that makes everything the way it is ... and what we think of as
reality is nothing more than like 3 seconds long stretched out for however long it lasts
kind of explains deja vu and bending spoons and thoughtograms and everything tasting like chicken

When the judge puts you in jail for lying about how you cloned out the knife in the killer's hand, you'll have plenty of time to think about what's real and unreal, truthful and untruthful.

it wasn't a knife though
it was a banana or carrot that looked like a knife because it was a b/w photograph

 

[faberryman]

When the judge puts you in jail for lying about how you cloned out the knife in the killer's hand, you'll have plenty of time to think about what's real and unreal, truthful and untruthful.

The standard of proof in criminal cases is beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a whole lot of daylight between that and the truth, so it is a bit of a kludge. I'll not be relying on judges and juries for defining reality for me.

 

[Dali]

Last time I checked it's the only reality we know.

So reality would be what we are aware of with our senses and "translated" to be meaningful by our brain? If it were true (I don't have the answer!), there is no reality outside of what we perceive so photography cannot be reality as photography is outside of me (said differently, the picture is not part of me). In that sense, a picture is a re-presentation of something we decipher as a portrait, a landscape, an sport event, etc..

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

When the judge puts you in jail for lying about how you cloned out the knife in the killer's hand, you'll have plenty of time to think about what's real and unreal, truthful and untruthful.

Are you going to argue that the above photograph is "reality"? That that house is that color, and that brightness, and that the verticals on it bend, and that the wood, brick, stone, grass and sky all have the texture of paper fiber? Yes, it is sufficiently realistic that if you were to go to that location, you would recognize the building, But it is not a precise, accurate representation of the building.

 

[Vaughn]

Last time I checked it's the only reality we know.

But we each have our own reality in that case...which is probably the case.

 

[jtk]

Some is, some is not. I can’t believe this is even a question,

It's Photrio.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Are you going to argue that the above photograph is "reality"? That that house is that color, and that brightness, and that the verticals on it bend, and that the wood, brick, stone, grass and sky all have the texture of paper fiber? Yes, it is sufficiently realistic that if you were to go to that location, you would recognize the building, But it is not a precise, accurate representation of the building.

I think you've lived in Washington DC too long where no one there knows the truth.