316. Why does TTG regard photographs as subjective “interpretations” when the general public still regards photos at objective “facts”?

Most of the public doesn’t still think photographs are objective “facts.”

In the 21st century, photography has been radically democratized and demythologized, for two reasons:

1. In the 21st century, members of the general public see many more photographs than people saw in the 19th and 20th century and are thus far more photographically literate.

The more that people see multiple very different photographic interpretations of the same subject — say, the Eiffel Tower — the more likely they are to realize that there is no one “correct” or “objective” perspective when photographing.

When that realization happens billions of times over, the result is that very few people still regard photographs as objective “facts.”

2. In the 21st century, members of the general public make many more photos than people made in the 19th and 20th century.

As a result, people are now much more confident that they know how undoctored photographs “work.”

In the film era many people would take only a handful of photos per year, and many others would take no photographs at all.

Today — thanks to smartphones — roughly 3 billion more people carry a quality camera with them than did so just a generation ago.