trust

(It’s all about “confidence”)

On this website, when discussing photographs the word “trust” refers to the combined total of three things:

A. The viewer’s level of confidence that they are seeing what the camera lens saw (within the limitations of the medium, of course);

AND

B. The viewer’s level of confidence that they are not misunderstanding the circumstances behind the making of the photograph;

AND

C. The viewer’s level of confidence in the source of the photograph.

In the Trust Test,

A is covered by P1 through P7,
B is covered by P8, and
C is covered by P9.

Varying levels

While most people are either going to trust the TTG label or they are not, with many aspects of photographs levels of “trust” are on a continuum or spectrum. Trust often is not a “yes-or-no” type of thing.

Viewers have different degrees of trust about different photographs (see for example #310).

To “trust” a photograph refers to a high level of the viewer confidence described above. “Distrust” and “mistrust” involve lower levels of viewer confidence.

Notes

1. Each viewer’s assessment of a photograph’s trustworthiness is based on that viewer’s years of experience “reading” and interpreting countless single-exposure, undoctored photographs, continually increasing how much they know about how photographs “work.”

2. When viewed without helpful context, even undoctored photographs can be baffling, meaningless, or even misleading.

But those same photographs can be understood and justifiably trusted by viewers when ancillary/ supporting information is supplied with the photograph (including the many things covered by the word “presentation” in P8). See for example the guide to “IC” alerts.

3. See also trust chain, trust exchange, and trust equation