325. Don’t all photographs lie?

“All” is a fairly sweeping word. If asked to think about it, most people would probably say, “Some photographs lie, and many do not.”

In the 19th and 20th centuries, so many people believed that “Photographs never lie” that multiple famous photographers felt compelled to tell the public, “Actually, photographs do lie — quite often.”

In the 21st century the public is more photographically literate, so there is little need to remind people anymore than photographs can lie.

But it is unlikely that many people would say that ALL of the photos they have ever taken are “lies.”

Assuming that question #325 isn’t referring to limitations of the medium that keep any two-dimensional image from perfectly portraying a three-dimensional scene,

. . . the two most common ways that photographs can “lie” are both addressed by TTG:

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1. Photographs can “lie” about the circumstances under which the photograph was made.

(Examples would be “a set-up scene that looks spontaneous” or “a zoo animal that looks like it’s in the wild.”)

Deception about “circumstances” has always been an issue, since the beginning of photography; it is not something new in the digital age.

P8 ensures that TTG-qualified photographs don’t lie about the circumstances under which the photograph was made.

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2. Photographs can “lie” about the appearance of the scene photographed...

. . . that is, about “what the camera lens saw.”

Deception about “appearance” has advanced greatly in the public consciousness in the 21st century, now that digital technology has made it easy to doctor photographs without detection by viewers. (See also here and see #307.)

P1 through P7 ensure that TTG-qualified photographs don’t lie about the scene’s “appearance,” using the rinairs standard.

Questions #613 and #614 deal with #1 and #2 above, respectively.