In short, the absence of truth is an unescapable fact of photographic life.

—Geoffrey Batchen

It has become fashionable in the photo art world to label all photography as fiction. This is tossed out like an undisputed fact. It seems the main claim (and there are many sub arguments for the fictitiousness of photography including the Post Photography movement of Geoffrey Batchen) is that photographs can be manipulated and are subjective.

The manipulation argument is strange as it is seen as something new. Ever since the invention of photography, artist have been using it to create fictitious images (just look for the 1857 photograph The Two Ways of Life by Oscar Gustave Rejlander if you think Photoshop was somehow groundbreaking). But that is a bit like saying ever since the Greeks started writing mythologies, writing can only be fiction. But just like mackerel are not all fish, manipulated photographs do not account for all photography. Continue reading →