http://bfmcmillen.com/virtuallee/?p=338

Just so you have the reference. Typical web-flux. Have enjoyed the conversation very much. So glad to see it’s a provokative article.

Thanks.

That is indeed what I said. That conveys exactly the same meaning as “it [the camera] was generally used for documentary purposes rather than constructing fiction [like the projector].”

I don’t feel that this conversation is progressing in any way. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about the potential of the camera to create fiction, which is not in dispute, and/or the nature of reality/truth, which is a far large question.

Also, it’s now turned into a two-way conversation on someone else’s blog, which I don’t feel is polite or constructive. If there was a wider discussion going on, I would be happy to continue, but this exchange just feels weird and pointless.

By all means reply and have the last word, but I’m done.

Nope. The claim, as one can see above, was “Interesting though that the camera was used primarily to record reality, while the projector’s greatest use has been as a fiction medium.”

Pictures of potemkin villages were “documentary”, but they’re a long way from reality.

> (Though I’d argue that a body with a bullet in it does show truth, just not the whole truth).

A picture of a body with a hole in it is almost always intended to argue “this is good” or “this is bad”, yet said picture doesn’t provide any evidence supporting that claim.

Pictures are almost always presented in a context. They’re intended to evoke a reaction. However, said reaction and context may have nothing to do with the truth.

From the sounds of it, you probably don’t agree with the analogy made in the quoted section of the main post, that a newspaper is “a moment of truth stilled”. You would have a point. Newspapers are not always truthful. I don’t think that photography as a medium is any less truthful, and certainly not as it was practised before the invention of the projector.

I wasn’t claiming anything quite so grand as “truth” for the photographic medium. (Though I’d argue that a body with a bullet in it does show truth, just not the whole truth). I was only pointing out that it was generally used for documentary purposes rather than constructing fiction. The non-fiction genre in general is not always truthful but it’s still not fiction.

It made me wonder whether the legacy of the internet will be fiction or non-fiction. Rather than debating endlessly about the photography of the past, let’s talk about internet and newspapers and journalism. This was, after all, the point of the post.

> Whether you like it or not, I’ve little doubt that an objective, empirical study would show my thesis to be true.

Yes, you could show that most photographs taken accurately portray what was in front of the lens when the shutter did its thing. However, that’s a long way from showing that photographs are “truth”.

I’ve mentioned POV and staging. There’s also the fact that people choose which images to show to others. For example, a picture of a dead body might show a bullet hole, but it doesn’t show the circumstances that lead to said hole.

The “accuracy” of pictures of Potemkin village is the lie.

Whether you like it or not, I’ve little doubt that an objective, empirical study would show my thesis to be true. What I’m really interested in discussing, if anyone wants to pick up on it, is whether fleshing out the analogy in this way has any relevance for the discussion about newspapers and blogs.

No, but creative printing techniques and staging did. Note that staging (and POV) are capable of great fiction, fiction which appears on the negative.

Since no one views negatives, creative printing gets to do its thing before a human sees anything.

A camera records both reality AND a point of view. Of course it doesn’t record reality in its entirety; that’s impossible. But it CAN record a slice of reality.

You can use a camera for fictional purposes too – but, as I said, it was *primarily* used as a tool to record reality. (Although the Victorians did get into some creative photographic shots of fairies).

Whereas the main achievement of cinema has been the feature film rather than the documentary.

Except that a camera does not record reality. It records point of view.

And then there’s photoshop.

One quibble: not all truth needs to be corrected. It rained this morning in New York City. That’s true now, and will be true a thousand years from now. “Current NYC weather” – the equivalent concept that does change from minute to minute and day to day, is not about truth vs. fiction. It’s just an evolving state of reality.