“the average person will not be able to know what is true anymore.” – Geoffrey Hinton.

INTRODUCTION

Photography was invented as a new technology in 1839. And it was viewed as a threat to traditional artforms such as painting and drawing and was not seen as art because it lacked “something beyond mere mechanism at the bottom of it.”. Photography is supposed to represent reality and is a real life perception of things, yet also an illusion as the photo’s framing, perspective, subject and composition are manipulated by the photographer. AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a tool that is relatively new. In this case, it is a tool that can be used to enhance, distort, bend, fracture and all together change how a photo looks. It can even create completely new images or things in an already existing image. AI has already developed enough to the stage where it has the ability to fabricate false images and videos, which can create confusion and make people think differently about a certain topic. It is likely most of us have seen an AI generated/altered image or video and have even believed whatever it was, as interesting as it is dangerous. On the idea of AI being dangerous, Geoffrey Hinton, mostly referred to as the “Godfather of AI” resigned from his position at Google to bring awareness to the rise of AI and how it can have many potential dangers. He said in an interview; “Right now, they’re not more intelligent than us, as far as I can tell. But I think they soon may be.”. He worries that AI can become too unpredictable and can eventually start to cause harm.

PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE PAST

Photography in the past, before the digital age, had artists use ways of manipulating the photos. Both with the camera and in the darkroom. Many artists would put Vaseline on their camera lenses, put chemicals on prints in a darkroom and would also scratch negatives together, artists would even move things seen in the photo to make them look more interesting. All these methods were used by artists to make their photos look more like an actual art piece, this was called “Pictorialism”.

An example image from this era:

This is a photo called “The Valley of the Shadow of Death”, it is known as “the first iconic photograph of war”. It was taken by Roger Fenton in 1855 in Crimea during the Crimean War, the photo shows a valley there with lots of used cannonballs. It was called “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” because that valley had constant shelling there. It was later theorised that Roger Fenton had the cannonballs put on the road for the photo, thus creating an unrealistic perception of the event. But many people have combatted this allegation by saying it wasn’t fabricated at all, the Orsay Museum said “this is unlikely as the fighting raging around him would probably not have allowed him to do so”. Some people have also claimed that the cannonballs were put there from soldiers who were collecting them for reuse, and had put them there for the time being. I think personally that the cannonballs were intentionally placed there by Fenton, not to exactly lie to the viewer but to instead emphasize to the viewer about the dangers of war and to make the photo more serious and look more convincing. But people when they found out about the cannonballs being placed there jumped to conclusions and accused him of lying. When he really wasn’t trying to. To this day, it is unknown whether he staged the photo or not, and there have been many theories and claims supporting if he did or not. But no one really knows and no one will.

PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE PRESENT

Photography now since the digital age still alters the truth, and it’s never been easier now that we have things such as AI and Photoshop:

This is a “photo” called “The Electrician”, made by Boris Eldagsen in 2022. The photo shows a 40’s looking portrait of two women. This photo is from a series called “pseudomnesia” which is Latin for “fake memory”. The photos in this series are about “fake memories of the past, that never existed, that no one photographed”. The photo was going to win an award at the 2023 Sony World Photography event but the award was turned down by Eldagsen himself and he then revealed that the photo was actually AI generated. He used AI generators such as Midjourney and DALL E 2 to create the image. Which means anyone can use these platforms too as they are mostly free and are easily accessible, this could potentially bring dangers to our society as there are no regulations currently set for using AI generation and it only takes one image or video of a fabricated situation to cause bad things to happen. AI has increased our ability to create new images that has no relationship with either photography or the truth which can be very bad. Boris Eldagsen however, despite declining his award, believes that AI “isn’t a threat” and that it is used to “liberate artists”. I personally think that it’s a little scary the fact that AI has become so convincing that it can be passed as legit through checks made by actual staff at award events. But Eldagsen clearly wasn’t trying to fool anyone and was simply wanting to use his AI to make his album, it wasn’t his fault that it won an award and the fact that he turned it down only further proves that he wasn’t trying to “cheat” to win.

CONCLUSION

Photography in the past, when altering an image, was much harder to do as there wasn’t much technology or tools to help do it, but at the same time it seemed a lot more fun and interesting as you had to actually interact with the environment and actually think more about what you want to do. It also seemed mostly harmless as you couldn’t really achieve much with faking a photo and conveying any lies. Modern age however, it is much easier as we have AI and other things like photoshop to alter and create images, being much easier and quicker. You don’t have to involve yourself with changing things in the actual place when you’re taking the picture – if you’re even taking an actual picture that is, which I’m not a fan of particularly. I also don’t like how easy and accessible it is too, anyone can make a fake image or video, which is good but can be very scary when you think about what things they can make and make people think, it will also just be a nuisance to deal with as rumours and theories about controversies and situations etc. are already annoying enough to deal with. And the fact that you could even win awards by making fake photographs is very unfair for other people who took actual photos, why take the time to go out and make a real photo when someone else sat at their desk can make an award winning photo with just a few clicks? The future of photography is unclear and undecidable given the potential with these new tools, one day we might not even need cameras because we’ll be able to make our own photos with an app or software.

Bibliography: 

• Geoffrey Hinton
• Valley of the Shadow of Death
• The Electrician

Using Adobe InDesign, we learned how to set up a double-page spread using various tools on the program. With a few of my edited images taken in St. Malo, I attempted to organise them into different layouts to create a composition that I was happy with, and that, with added text, would make for an excellent descriptive piece on the Grand Plage – the beach outside St. Malo.

I played around with the organisation of the photos until I found one I liked, and experimented with using another image of mine as the background – lowering the opacity to bring more focus to other media on the spread.

After coming up with the title Gorgeous Grand Plage for the double-page spread, I added some placeholder text to see how it would look with a description. We then printed our spreads off and peer-assessed each other as a class.

I’m proud of the spread I put together in the short time that I had, but I think I could develop this further using different layouts and experimenting with more tools in InDesign.

Street photography

street photography is genre of photography that records everyday life in a public place. This is often a form of photography which links with portraiture as the photographer is able to take candid photographs of people, without them knowing. it is also a form of documentary-style photography that captures scenes in public places, often without prompting or posing from the subjects. It’s about capturing people and their surroundings, creating meaningful images that tell stories.

There is another variation of street photography which is more under the name of urban photography, which could be photographs of the street itself but there aren’t any people in there, or people are not the main focus in the photograph.

Who- people on the streets of St Malo, especially people that show a connection between each other. Meaning people that represent human relationships.

What- as I am going to be focusing on street photography, the objects that I will usually capture are going to be buildings, shops, street signs and elements like bins, benches and plants.

Where- on the streets of St Malo but mainly within the old town region, as it is close to the beach, some photographs may feature that location

When- the trip is supposed to be taken out on the 14th June 2023, between mid-day and early evening. this means we would have around 5-6 hours. This means the times the photographs will be taken is going to enable the photographs to turn out the best due to the high contrast between natural light and shadows between those times.

How- as I am going to be capturing people that are moving quite quickly, I will need to use shutter speed mode and keep a closer attention to the shutter speed as well as a high aperture because it is going to be bright. in order to not have the photographs blurred I will need to ensure that the shutter speed is roughly around around the speed of 1/250sec and 1/500sec. I want to achieve high contrast in my images and sharp detail.

Why- to develop a higher skill set when it comes to capturing people that are unaware of the photograph being taken of them, in other words I will practice my street photography skills and get outside of my comfort zone when it comes to taking photographs of strangers. I think St Malo is a great place to that as most of the people there will not recognise me whereas if I were to complete this in Jersey there is more of a likelihood that I could come across someone I know.

As a group, we travelled to St. Malo to test our abilities using Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment” technique, taking part in live street photography throughout the town for the day.

I ended up taking hundreds of images over the 5 or so hours we spent there, covering different areas such as the castle walls, the restaurants, and narrow alleyways, most of which captured the bustling community at St. Malo at its peak.

Once I’d sorted through the larger half of the photos, I gave my best-unedited photographs a star rating on Lightroom Classic, only keeping the highest-rated images for editing.

After editing a small portion of the photographs, I was already left with a wide range of compositions that a few I believe capture the concept of the “decisive moment” perfectly, and imitate Cartier-Bresson’s style. I think this trip was a great opportunity to take a large amount of images that I’m definitely going to be using for projects in the future, and a chance to develop my skills and really focus on my weaknesses in photography.

‘Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as a piece of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire’. Susan Sontag (1971), On Photography

Photography has been around for many years since 1839, and has only developed more and more over the years. Many take photography as a glimpse of life, a small snap shot of someone’s life or their day, however it could tell a completely different story to what the actual scene was like. This is where we begin to wonder whether photographs can lie or not. Many people realised that photography was a very different approach to art as opposed to traditional art forms and captures more realistic moments. Traditional art like paintings and drawing have been around for many many years, with the first painting known having been made over 40,000 years ago. This make the technique very sentimental to some and also historically valuable. With photography being introduced it may feel as if the world if moving on and becoming more influenced by technology which people may not like. I think to some people this may be seen as a less valuable way to produce art than traditional art as it isn’t ourselves who have created it physically as well as it being a newer medium which people will always be sceptical about. Photography is also seen as being an illusion to many people as it is a frozen image of a moment in time that is only a snap shot memory. Many people don’t like the idea of this as it doesn’t show the full story and it only one specific perspective or angle of the actually scenario. For this exact reason many people find it deceiving and hard to comment on. In more modern days, as photography has become very popular and accepted partially, I believe that traditional art work and photography can coexist and even work together to develop further.

AI in photography has become largely used in recent years. It is the use of artificial intelligence technology to generate realistic images from a few words or to adapt original images to enhance specific parts etc. Whilst it can be used simply to help photographers improve the quality of their images or to try out different ways to edit them, it can also be used negatively because of its realistic outcomes. As AI is becoming more and more developed it has also created quite an up roar with many different people for obvious reasons.

Above we can see an image which was taken in 1936 of a loyalist soldier who sadly passed away. To some people this image may seem staged or unrealistic, however, this image is completely real and was just taken at the exact moment the soldier was shot. The photographer had asked some of the soldiers to go out onto the field to ‘fake’ getting shot for some images, when all of a sudden the enemies took advantage and the soldier I the image was actually shot with Capa capturing it at the perfect time. Whilst this image is real it could be easily staged which is why many people doesn’t believe in many images as it is so easy to do or to edit these days to give the viewer one idea when the actually story is completely different. One of the few things that to me makes the image seem more real is the framing and focus of the image. When staging an image we may put the subject in the middle of the frame, however, in this image we can see that the soldier is off the the left hand side. Part of the soldier is also not in focus which is one of the key thing many photographers aim for, focus. As the soldier is moving it would have made it hard for Capa to produce a focused image whether it was staged or not especially back in the time that it was produced, however, I do think this adds to it.

In this second image we can immediately see a difference. It looks much more digital and almost more like a very realistic painting as opposed to a photograph. Whilst this may be because it is a much newer image and photography without AI has deeply developed since, it almost looks too realistic to be true. there are a couple things in this image that I find give it away. I think that the burgers don’t look realists because of the way that they are stacked and they look as if they are plastic or another material rather than food. In the background we can see another employee who appear to have no face/ doesn’t look like a human. Whilst AI is very advanced it doesn’t always go according to plan which to me is a big give away to this image. However that single part of the image could have been edited whilst the rest isn’t etc. Finally, I think that ‘Trumps’ skin on his arms doesn’t look very realistic and again look almost like plastic. With that being said, the image still looks as if it could be real and just edited to improve the quality. This allows us to understand why people mistake Ai generated images for real images creating dispute.

Overall, I think that AI can be very deceiving and misleading causing people to interpret images in the wrong way. I think that images that are staged are a great example of how photography can lie as it is a mind game. They make the viewer think one thing but behind the scenes are completely different At the end of the day, I think it all comes down to how you perceive images differently and what we each take from them. Everyone will always have something else to say about an image or their own opinion to add as photographs are a very open style of art allowing the viewer to add their own thoughts to it. Not only do I think that images generated from AI can lie, but also regular images can too, as ultimately they are only a snap shot of a much bigger movie.

Hypothesis:Photography and Truth: Can a photograph lie?

Opening quote: to set the scene choose an appropriate quote from key texts or source that you have read and understood. Or select something Will Lakeman said in class discussion around ethics using AI in photography.

Introduction (250 words): Describe how photography from its invention as a new technology in 1839 was viewed as a threat to traditional artforms such as painting and drawing. Provide an overview of why photography (like all other art forms) is an illusion and a representation of reality (reflect on your essay earlier on the Origin of Photography). Explain what AI is as a new technology, and how it is already part of lives, give examples (Google, speech recognition, generative AI etc). Discuss both human and societal benefits and potential dangers of AI, again use examples such as Geoffrey Linton resigning from Google to bring awareness, or Sam Altman’s (CEO of OpenAI) being questioned by USA congress. Select one quote by either Linton or Altman and comment (either for or against). Introduce the two images that you have chosen as examples of the above.

The definition of photography is ‘the art or practice of taking and processing photographs’ but how do we know that the images produced are an accurate representation of reality? It is often viewed as a medium that portrays an objective reality, showing the truth of a situation captured within the lens. However the subject, framing and composition of a photograph are all shaped by the choices of the photographer which inevitably can change the ‘truth’ of the images. Whether the photographer has intentionally cut something out of frame, moved things around for aesthetic purposes or even staged the whole image all these factors will affect the veracity of these images. Early photography was viewed as an objective representation of reality but considering how far technology has come, from the creation of the first camera, this may no longer be the case. Aspects such as editing or even AI formulated images are more prevalent in images now then ever before. They enable photographers to be more creative and create their desired outcomes which many would argue, due to these factors, photography can no longer be seen as documentation of true events.

Nowadays, photography is mostly digital, and photo manipulation is easily accessable for example on forums such as photoshop. However it was not always this simple, photographs used to have to be retouched by hand using paint or ink, pieced together in the darkroom from separate photographs which was tedious, time consuming and overall not as effective. Some of the terms we use for editing today were derived from the ‘old fashioned’ way such as airbrushing. All these skills required a the photographer to have a higher level of artistic skill than neccessary for editing images today and, for some, access to a darkroom.

The Falling Soldier is a black and white photograph claimed to have been taken on Saturday, September 5, 1936. It is said to depict the death of a Republican Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth soldier, during the Battle of Cerro Muriano in the Spanish Civil War. The image was staged so does not depict an actual image of warfare and instead was meant to show a staged representation. However, this did not go to plan as they were in an active war zone and the man unfortunately got shot and died. This presents the question of whether this image truly portrays warfare as the staging of the image would make one think otherwise however the bravery in taking the risk to take photographs in an active war zone depicts an accurate representation of the risks these soldiers take on a daily basis in these dangerous places.

The Canadian photographer Jeff Wall photographs are typically postmodern and manage to incorporate allusions to art history and the mass media into seemingly realistic scenes in an attempt to confuse any potentially documentary implications which has lead some people to purpose the question of whether he is a real photographer. He often was found creating a large-scale, fictional image that recall the grandeur and narrative of classical painting, Wall challenges the documentary role that photography often plays. But by mounting the image in a lightbox, his work also resembles imagery from cinema or advertising found in popular, contemporary culture.

This image displays a homeless woman standing over a makeshift shelter that appears to have another person living inside and was shot beneath a freeway that is a well populated spot for the homeless. Wall avoids answering questions about the authenticity of this shot and to what extent it was staged which makes it difficult to decipher whether this is an example of photography lying or not. On one hand homelessness is a large problem worldwide so the image is not creating a false representation however it is difficult to determine the honesty of this shot. This example relates to Picasso’s famous quote ‘We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise truth.’ as the image itself might not be a truth but the representation of homelessness is a real issue so the image is making the viewer see the reality in that issue.

In conclusion, I believe photography can lie. This is especially considering the technology we have access to that enables almost any altercation to be added, changed or removed from an image. Although, I do not believe that all staged images are a complete deception of the truth as many are presented to display a truth in order to either have an affect on the viewer, portraying a point, or to try and influence a change. Looking back at the two images I previously referred to, I would say that the first image is a more truthful photograph as the photographer was more transparent about the staging behind the image and to what extent the final outcome represented the reality of what the photographers saw. This openness about the ‘behind the scenes’ of an image is very important when wanting images to represent the truth as how the photograph is made and the adaptations, edits or any kind of staging/framing that has taken place, as all of these aspects will inevitably effect the truth of the image.

All images

Edits

Best photos

I went to St Malo with the intention of taking images in the styles of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Jeff Wall, but also using my own style of slightly under or over exposed images.

Who: The people in the streets of St Malo

What: Streets of St Malo

Where: IntraMuras of St Malo, France

Why: To practice street photography

I made most of the images black and white, again in the style of Cartier-Bresson and Wall.

My favourite edited images:

Introduction

Photography became a ‘threat’ to art on January 7 1839, when the daguerreotype was presented to members of the French Académie des Sciences, an invention that would change art and visual representations. Louis Daguerre had been experimenting with how to capture what he saw in his camera obscura since the mid 1820s. Once he had discovered the key to creating a daguerreotype, photography was invented, and became an issue for traditional art forms such as painting and drawing. Since then photography has evolved through techniques such as the calotype, ‘The first selfie‘ by Robert Cornelius, Pictorialism and even Henry Mullins’ Carte-de-Visit. It could be seen as a threat to the traditional art forms because, although in the early days of photography an image could take up to 3-15 to expose, photography was a quicker and easier way to capture moments and people. Robert Cornelius shot the first successful portrait in 1839, starting the trend for portraiture photography. There is a record of photographs of the hierarchy in society because it was expensive to produce images in the 1800-1900s. Photography removed the imagination from art as it opened up a broader idea of what it could be, revolutionising conventional art. How is photography an illusion? Photography can lie to its audience in many ways, from the Boulevard du Temple only presenting two people in the image, to Leap Into The Void, to photoshopped images, and even AI created photos. As a viewer, you will never know the truth behind an image without research into its creation, causing photography to lack truth and create illusions.

AI is a new form of technology that uses artificial intelligence to create text, images and sound. It is beginning to be used in art and photography to generate new kinds of art. Examples of AI are face recognition, Chat GPT, Google Maps and Ride, Chatbots etc. Photoshop Beta is a new app used to create AI on your images, easily accessed from home and used to create abstract photos. Will Lakeman uses this is his work to create fictional images, however using AI can create controversy for photographers. The question are AI generated images classed as photographs is prominent, and are the images created a lie? There are ethical concerns following AI and how powerful it could become. The so called ‘Godfather of AI’ Dr Geoffrey Hinton resigned from google due to his concern of its potential.

The two images that I have decided to study are Boris Eldagsen’s ‘The Electrician‘ and Robert Capa’s ‘Death of a Loyalist Soldier‘. They equally hold the power to be questioned based around their truth and how they were created, even though they were produced 86 years apart.

Photography was able to be manipulated before the digital age in many ways. From shutter speeds not capturing movement to darkroom experimentation, photographs have been manipulated since the beginning of photography. A key photographer that exemplifies manipulation in images is Julia Margaret Cameron and Pictorialism. At the start of the photography journey the process involved a lot of physical work using possible hazardous materials. She used a wooden camera that was large and inconvenient and placed it on a tripod. Her early portraits show how she experimented with a soft focus and dramatic lighting. She used a soft focus lens  which deliberately introduces spherical aberration in order to give the appearance of blurring the image while retaining sharp edges. It is created from lens flaws, where the lens forms images that are blurred due to spherical aberration. Her images included imperfections such as fingerprints, streaks and swirls. She also manipulated her negatives by scratching into them. This photo of Julia Jackson shows her manipulation in the background where she scratched a picture into the background. Her work is an example, demonstrating that images were manipulated and lied to the viewer from the early stages of photography, not only modern day digital images.

Image 1

“No tricks are necessary to take pictures in Spain. You don’t have to pose your camera. The pictures are there, and you just take them. The truth is the best, the best propaganda.”
Robert Capa, interview with New York World-Telegram, September 2nd 1937 (Capa, 1937)

My chosen Image by Robert Capa, Death of a Loyalist Soldier, made in 1936 is an intriguing example of how photos can lie or tell the truth. The image was taken during the Spanish Civil War and named “the greatest war photographer in the world” (Capa, 1937). The image leads its viewer to question whether it is staged or not, however the story behind it explains that Capa arranged a small band of militiamen to pose on a hillside in the village of Cerro Muriano, creating staged images of war. The soldiers were not fighting at the time of the photoshoot. Whilst he was photographing one of the soldiers, a bullet hit him as Capa took the image, resulting in a half staged image. After the photo became famous for capturing a sudden and horror-stricken death, Capa was criticised for creating a staged photograph, leading to many theories being suggested. It was his 1975 book on war correspondents The First Casualty that raised questions about the images authenticity. In an interview he also spoke about the time he spend with this particular soldier, and how he was nervous to climb over the sand banks for the image because there had been gunfire earlier. The theory lies that the solider was told by Capa to run down the hill and fall, unfortunately being shot by chance during the making. However many people believe it is not true and the soldier was just ‘falling’. This example demonstrates that photographs leave underlying lies/ truths, showing us that not only digital images are manipulated to deceive its audience. Personally, I believe this image was not staged and he was shot by chance whilst the images were being taken. I find this case really interesting and investigating the different theories has lead me to realise the questions raised through images produced not only today, but back when digital images weren’t existent.

Modern photography has changed the way images are produced, introducing new digital technology such as Lightroom, Photoshop and now AI. Photography’s truth is becoming less reliable and causes uncertainty on what is really true. Even image cropping is a form of twisting the truth and context behind an image because it doesn’t give a full view of what is taking place at the time. Kevin Carter’s ‘The Vulture and the Little Girl’ is an example of how images can not tell the whole truth.

The photo presents a vulture watching a starving child, giving the impression that it is a natural occurrence and nothing can be done to help. However the broader knowledge behind the image informs us that there was a United Nations feeding centre near by. Although the image leads to a conclusion that the child didn’t survive, the truth reveals otherwise.

AI is also a technique to create images that don’t have a relationship with photography. DreamStudio is a website designed to create images based on what you ask the AI to create. In a matter of seconds you can make multiple images based on what you have searched. Using AI like this detaches creativity from photography because it is not using your imagination to create a piece of work from scratch, but rather using technology to create it. However AI and photography can be joined, through using Photoshop Beta (like Will Lakeman) and make creative works that are time consuming and still using your imagination.

Image 2

Eldqagsen was awarded as a winner of the Creative Category of the Open Competition, however it was only after the award was given that he admitted to using AI to create the image. He declined the reward after admitting he purposefully hid his AI use from journalists. This caused issues surrounding the acceptance of AI in photography contests, spurring stories about how the World Photography Organisation took action to disclose the situation. the World Photography Organisation stated ‘We are interested in photography as an art form, and within the Sony World Photography Awards we have our Creative categories in the Professional and Open Competitions which welcome photographers to experiment and explore the dynamism of the medium. With technological advancements, a wider audience of creators are engaging with lens-based work and we look forward to seeing how this can expand the reach and impact of photography’ (Stewart, 2023).

Eldagsen’s primary question is ‘How does AI imagery fit into the world of photography?’

He believes that the basic answer is for photography competitions to have their own category.

 “That’s easy to do. And then, if you have photography competitions, in the end people need to prove that it’s photography. There are RAW files and a multitude of technical possibilities to do that. Just look at the World Press Photo Award.” (Stewart, 2023)

Personally, I believe this image is intriguing because through AI, Eldagsen has managed to create a highly detailed image that deceived the World Photography Organisation into believing it was a photograph. I don’t think that AI generated images can be classed as ‘photography’ because it is not created through a camera, however I do believe that AI could be the next new art form. On the other hand, I think that AI has the power to create images that lie and have the potential to create false accounts when it is so highly developed, which could cause issues in the media.

Conclusion

Can a photograph lie?

These two images are dissimilar due to the fact one is created form a camera and the other AI. However they both don’t tell the truth, causing its viewers to wonder what is actually taking place/ what is real. Both photographers distort the truth, and the comparison between the two show how photography’s way of lying has advanced over time, leaving a concerning future ahead. What could AI become if it gains a greater power, and how far with the truth be twisted in photography?

Overall I believe a majority of images created ,from the first image with people in, to photoshopped and AI generated images, have the potential to be named false. There are many aspects in photography that can support the argument that photographs lie such as

• cropping
• shutter speed blurring/ not capturing the full scene
• actors/ props
• photoshop and lightroom
• AI e.g. Dreamstudo, Midjourney, Photoshop Beta
• Changes made when developing in the darkrrom
• Scratchings and imperfections – Julia Margaret Cameron and Pictorialism

Reviewing this, I have come to the conclusion that these are aspects that contribute to what photography is, because nothing can compare to what the eye can see and witness in the exact same moment the shutter is released. I think the idea that there is no complete truth behind every image we see is part of what photography is, and it’s the creative imagination that needs to conclude a final belief about a certain photograph and the truth or lies it holds.

Bibliography

Stewart, J. (2023) Photographer Admits His Award-Winning Photo Is AI-Generated and Rejects Prize, My Modern Met. Available at: https://mymodernmet.com/ai-photography-boris-eldagsen/ (Accessed: 11 July 2023).

“The Falling Soldier by Robert Capa (1936) Story behind Perhaps the Most Well Known War Photograph Ever”

https://aboutphotography.blog/blog/story-behind-perhaps-the-most-well-known-war-photograph-ever