A conspiracy of "fictions"
Chendering Fisheries Garden, Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia (_DSC1535), originally uploaded by hackspot.
Taken with a Nikon D50 and AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G lens
Location: Chendering Fisheries Garden, Kuala Terengganu, 21080 Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia
Honesty is a loaded word when describing photographs, which are "fictions" the photographer and the person photographed have conspired to create -- but where the photographer clearly has loaded the deck and holds the upper hand. But still, as in all fiction there can be honest emotions and ideas expressed. So I don't mean honest in any sense that a philosopher or jurist would accept. I mean honest in terms of creating a response in me, the viewer. It's something you know when you are experiencing it.
To be clear, the only truth a photograph holds for me is that is a photograph, something a photographer created. I think it is intellectually dishonest to hold one art form, photography, to a standard that we do not hold other arts to. Experiencing art involves a certain suspension of disbelief. After all, when we listen to music that evokes the sea, do we demand that it is only worthwhile if actual sea made sounds are used and that someone is throwing buckets of seawater on us while we listen? But I do want to "connect" in some way with what I'm looking at, tasting, listening too, or touching.
Labels: AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G, Chendering Fisheries Complex, Nikon D50, People, Philosophy of Photography, Photography, Portrait
