Thesis Statement

Traditional photography has long been considered a neutral or objective medium, in which one can truthfully capture reality. However, developments in digital imaging and photography have served to undermine this idea of photographic truth. In the book Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age, Margot Lovejoy points out that, "now a photograph's information can be processed or changed by manipulating or warping its structural light components in the computer to create images which are complete simulations" (154). The ability to alter and manipulate images to create these "artificial simulations of reality" directly contradicts the accepted belief that photographs are truthful representations of reality. The aim of this research blog is to explore the concept of the photographic truth in traditional photography and into the digital era, and to prove that that, in reality, the concept of the photographic truth is a myth.