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by ForrestN 1891 days ago
Brief photo theory interlude: beware of rhetoric about photographs "revealing" or "exploring" things. These photographs are telling a story, and have all the subjectivities and editing that we take for granted in written works. They are not empirical evidence, they are works made to represent and persuade.

When you see something framed this way, proceed skeptically!

4 comments

“Let’s face it. What do you know from a photograph? They don’t have narrative ability. You talk about a cow jumping, you don’t know if it’s going up or down from the picture.” - Garry Winogrand

Not implying that I agree, but through a very reductionist lens from one of the medium's greats, photographs are nothing more than light on a flat medium. Whatever meaning we imbue is an interpretation.

Probably a good idea to be skeptical of everything you read. But often that’s not possible.
Must be a conspiracy.
This has Big Hikikomori written all over it.