Is photography capable of giving the truth?
Coconut Juice, originally uploaded by Fadzly Mubin.
Taken with a Nikon D50 and Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6G lens
The simple answer is yes. From there things get murky. Photography captures and presents images of the surfaces of things. Of course the photographer can use all manner of visual imagery and symbolism to suggest that there is (or at least ought to be) some deeper meaning a mind tuned to understand it might find. - Something beneath the surface as it were.
Artists never seem to be willing to tell the public what to make of their works. I'm sure you have seen many interviews with artists and authors intended to draw out of them the significance and meaning of their art. The result is never very satisfying because the artist rightfully knows only himself, and not to any more profound extent than the rest of us do. Although all of us can be honest about ourselves to a greater or lesser degree, none of us truly knows, once and for all, what our work might mean to someone else. Artists do resonate to things in the world around them, but I think that the ways of turning experience into art are individual and mysterious. WYSIWYG is such a simplifying point of view that it's no wonder it is the stock answer for such questions.
And this is probably just the kind of issue you want to expore with your question. For example, "How can great portrait photographers make pictures that reveal the character as well as the appearance of their subjects?" The overwhelming fact is that they do. Some devices used to create this effect might be objects placed near the subject that symbolize his/her life's ambition or work, a suggestive manner of dress or costume, facial expression, or perhaps overall set design.
Many images show something that needs no interpretation to be recognizable while at the same time appealing to the mind to suggest that it is possible for one to understand things in a different way. The "sight gag" is a simple example of this kind of thing.
Truth is a mental thing. It mind supplies it to things around it, often in the form of some explanation or other we know as understanding. The photographer has at his disposal a whole arsenal of conventional visual imagery to convey more than appearance alone. I'm not talking about using PS to make dull photos into eye-popping wonders, I'm talking about making the picture interesting in the first place - interesting the way you saw it. I think it is possible to use ideas other artists such as Norman Rockwell explored to show situations and reactions in their subjects the viewer responds to. I don't want to be NR myself, but I would like to learn how to present subjects that are lively and interesting. (How would you show that your subject actually stinks if you could smell it?)
The rock: This brings up the matter of photographic point-of-view. There are infinitely many specific camera positions for photographing any subject. Simply turning the camera using the same mount to improve composition is yet another position. Some people seem to have a knack for finding interesting ways of looking at what would at first seem to be the most ordinary objects. When it comes to something like this it seems best to let truth take care of itself and you the photographer accept the challenge of finding the points of view you like best. The interesting ones that say that there is more to a rock than meets the eye.
Labels: AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G, Nikon D50, People, Philosophy of Photography, Photography, Portrait
