Truth

"We know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it" (Susan Sontag, Postman 73).

As I was reading Postman's book, this line stood out to me. As an Image Arts student, the discussion of photography really left an impression in my mind. Do we only know the world as the camera records it? As Postman says, a photograph does not require a context, so there are no means to argue its content or truth. There is no beginning, middle, or end of photographs (73, 74), there is just the one moment in time captured on film. It depends on how the moment in time is interpreted.

A photo of a dog sitting on a couch can illustrate many stories about how the dog became a couch sitter, if the dog always sits on the couch, and other assumptions we can make about the dog. Are any of them are true? We do not know what was really happening when that dog was on the couch. Only the photographer does, and it was their choice to make what we know about the dog available to us. The photographer chose to crop out the man yelling at the dog, to cover up the dogs’ footprints with a floral blanket. The photographer chose to make this moment in time as visually appealing as possible, to tell his story, through his eyes.

This makes me wonder about life. In every photo, TV show, song, advertisement, game, etc, are we really seeing the big picture? Are the professionals leaving out important details? Is what we know really true? Or is it true because we have accepted what the creator chose to include?