[Leica] what is truth?

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 9:07 AM -0800 3/30/05, Douglas Herr wrote:
>Steve Barbour <kididdoc@cox.net> wrote:
>
>>  taking vs making...
>>
>>  <http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/making-images.shtml>
>
>Photography cannot convey truth; truth is a continuum of time and 
>space while a photograph is a limited view of a fraction of time. 
>Photography is an interpretation of truth that can convey 
>understanding.  Meyers' space probe data example is appropriate here 
>because the data the probes relayed to earth had to be interpreted 
>in order to be understood.
>
>In making an image Meyers is showing us how he interprets the scene 
>in front of him, or how he understands it if you will.  The 
>photographer's task is to include in the picture the elements of 
>truth that promote his understanding while excluding those elements 
>of truth which are marginally useful (or distracting) to his 
>understanding.
>
>IMHO there is no such thing as 'taking' a photograph because the 
>photographer, in choosing a particular view or moment in time, is 
>making decisions about how the photograph should look.
>
>
>Doug Herr
>Birdman of Sacramento
>http://www.wildlightphoto.com

Well said, Doug.

'Pictures' of any sort are an abstraction. If you are not trained in 
looking at two dimensional representations, they will not convey 
anything the maker intended to you. Early on in photography B&W 
became the standard through lack of ability to do colour. In most of 
the art world, B&W is a sketching tool, or a technique of convenience 
when colour is too cumbersome. Some B&W developed its own course, but 
colour was the ultimate goal in most cases. Egytian and Greek statues 
were painted and very colourful. Sculptors who worked in the 
'classical' idiom in the renaissance and later didn't necessarily 
colour them because they took as inspiration statuary that had its 
colour washed off over the centuries.

After colour became practical and inexpensive, it became the standard 
in photography as well, but due to the long development of a B&W 
aesthetic it has continued as a significant sideline, but it is just 
as much a personal translation of the data as the data from the space 
probe. 'False colour' photos show us things we don't ordinarily 
perceive; B&W is 'false colour'.

For journalistic purposes we have been trained to accept and 
interpret a certain subset of image making as appropriate, for the 
wider range of image making this subset does not apply. Neither is 
the 'truth' nor 'honest'; they are only honest to their own standards 
and withing their own interpretations. Documentary and journalistic 
photography (not the same thing) demand certain standards be met to 
be successful and accepted, but they are hardly the standard bearers 
for what is 'photography'. Photography is making images with light, 
and says nothing about how the result is achieved or what 
manipulations are allowed.

Truth is not to be found in photography. If someone holds up a photo 
and says: "This is the TRUTH", then he is lying. If someone holds up 
a photo and says: "This is what it looked like at the moment I took 
the picture, except the scene was really in colour, and that flare 
spot didn't exist in reality, and you could really see into those 
shadows that are totally black here, and you could really see the 
detail in the hilights and there was an elephant present which you 
can't see 'cause I didn't have my 21 with me, and that blob at the 
back was Mr. Smith but he's out of focus due to my having to shoot at 
f/2" then he's being more truthful.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
   /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
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