Photographs: whence veracity?

Human understanding of reality, and beliefs about photography's depiction of reality, is the product of education, cultural influences, ability to discern information, and reactions to the development of ideas over time, along with the mind's sequences of self-righting and filtering of knowledge. There are social experiences that condition particular beliefs, mental function, development, adaptation, and organization that may be in conflict or allied to each other. A natural truth can be misinterpreted for many reasons--propaganda, misunderstanding, misconception, etc.--and accumulate over time. The key to this discussion ultimately lays in the general public's belief in a high veracity for photographs. Having grown up with a notion that "the camera never lies," having taken photographs themselves and seen the resultant image so similar to what they saw in the viewfinder, the average person supposes the high veracity of photographs either without considering the matter deeply enough to ponder the opposite or ignoring the characteristics of the photograph that do not resemble the characteristics of the external world: such as black-and-white images of colored scenes, and still/frozen scenes from a moving continuum. In some instances they see photographs of people they know well, including themselves, and consider that the image does not look like that person, or themselves, yet the belief stands unquestioned as to photography's high veracity. The illusion is an allusion. Miles Orvell expresses the idea that "the cultural significance of the camera lies not in the image it produced, but in how people thought about it." (73) To take this idea and place it in the context herein brings the notion that people who want a high veracity for photographs will draw such a conclusion. In effect, people take the veracity of photography as a given and give away the notion of accurate representation.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

MICHAEL SHAPTER is an Australian medical and forensic photographer who has published three books of his fine art photography, and is currently completing a doctoral degree.

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