I've written in a fair bit of detail on this subject elsewhere. Here's a mildly abridged version of that material:
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It’s undeniable is that a photograph's power as a photograph derives from some sort of deep connection with reality. If photographs are to be a thing in their own right, that connection with reality has to count for something -- because there isn't anything else. If you truly think photographs are really just quick paintings, I suppose you can stop reading here.
We, the viewer, tend to make two mistakes. The big one is that we confuse the 1/30th of a second of reality with something larger and longer. How often have you heard someone exclaim, about a photograph of someone they do not know, "Oh, you really captured her personality" when, of course, there's not a shred of evidence that is true? A successful portrait feels like a picture that captures personality. We assume that, from a look at the picture, we understand in a useful way what was going on there and then.
The second mistake we make is to assume that what we see is, at least, the truth of that 1/30th of a second. We assume that what we see in the frame was, at least, what was literally there at that moment. This is also untrue, of course. There's stuff outside the frame, there's manipulation within the frame, and so on.
The first mistake is built upon the second. We trust the truth of the captured instant, and extrapolate from that. When we find the frame itself to be untrue, the whole charade collapses. Which is why people get SO MAD about doctored news photos.
Thus, in the past, we had a situation in which the reality of a photograph was assumed. If it looked real, the assumption was "it looked pretty much like that", that's pretty much what most people thought when they saw the picture. This is why a photo of a little girl running down a road, naked and on fire, had such an impact on the Vietnam war. A painting of that same scene, a drawing, a verbal description, would have had far less impact simply because the viewer would automatically assume that it could never have really looked like that. That's utter madness, nothing is that terrible. And yet, it was just that terrible, the child's terror and pain was just that great.
There is a reason that the US military is controlling the photographic narrative from their current wars so tightly. They'd really prefer not to have their lovely lovely wars messed with, thankyouverymuch, and they have learned some painful lessons in what happens when you let accurate visual depictions of war escape into the public eye.
That was then, this is now.
The generation after mine is, to a large degree, distrustful of the contents of the frame. They assume all photos are 'shopped, are manipulated, and edited. Half erasures and half composite, all untruth. They don't seem to mind this, but the result is that we as a culture are starting to view photographs as quickly made drawings, with no more truth or reality in them than the maker chose to put in. The deep connection with reality is being, I think, broken.
Nobody makes the second mistake much any more, we’re mostly too clever. The first mistake can’t be far behind.
If people no longer believe in the content of the frame, then they no longer believe that there’s anything special about a photograph. It’s just a fast way of drawing, and might contain anything the photographer wants it to. The little girl running down the road on fire? That’s probably just a still from the latest Mad Max film, isn’t it? And anyways it can’t have been that bad, the photographer probably ‘shopped it to pep it up a bit. Whatever.
Where is Vietnam, anyways, and what do you want to do tonight?
Does this mean that it’s bad to photoshop some mountains? Nope. You’re just part of an inevitable sea change in the way people look at photos. There’s no stopping it, and there’s no moral victory in putting the computer away.
Wouldn’t hurt you any to think about these things a bit, though.
