> I would still disagree with the notion of a photo being an "objective" > record -- I would suggest that a "subjective" record would be more > accurate, to the extent that the photographer's subjective choices are > essential to the making of any image. In a text-based mailing list you need to be brief: the crux of your argument seems to be that since objectivity is impossible everything is subjective. If you had been here a couple of weeks back you might have remembered similar statements to that: so I won't belabour them all again. When you "see" the world what are you really seeing? http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/pub/slehar/webstuff/book/chap1.html "The brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side, The one the other will contain With ease, and you beside." --- Emily Dickenson > That said, I do acknowledge a > difference in kind between choosing Velvia to bump up the colors in a scene > and tossing a baboon to a leopard to get some shots of the leopard's dining > habits. Worked for A Wolfe though ... ;o) If we are trying to debunk the idea that we can define a "straight" or objective shot maybe it is easier to define what it is not. "A straight photo is not one in which the photographer has later removed/added structures to the scene in photoshop ... " Choosing Velvia is a subjective decision (as *EVERYTHING* man does is.) Telling the viewer in the caption that the shot was"... taken on Velvia, with a 400mm lens, 1/125 sec at f8 polariser, etc etc ..." allows the informed user to decide for themselves what the "real" scene was like. That is striving towards objectivity even if the concept of objectivity itself if fraught with difficulty. The fact that no-one can tell the whole complete truth does not meat it is impossible to lie ...
