It’s undeniable is that a photograph's power as a photograph derives from some sort of deep connection with reality.
Denied: A photograph is merely a shallow reflection of past sensibly-perceptible-reality - but that's more than we have without a photograph.
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.
Yes there is something else -
Quick&EasyTM image-making. (Compare to
tracing mirror or lens images, and consider that photographs are being replaced by computer generated images when that's quicker and easier and cheaper.)
Yes there is something else - by virtue of Quick&EasyTM image-making, a "capacity to engage with both the process and experience of time".
There's a shallow reflection of reality
and Quick&EasyTM
and a capacity to engage with time
and …
We, the viewer, tend to make two mistakes.
We,
the writer, tend to make two mistakes -- over-generalization and overreach.
"Oh, you really captured her personality" can be understood as a polite social utterance rather than a statement of belief.
We may indeed "from a look at the picture, … understand in a useful way what was going on there and then" (depends what's
useful).
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.
"There's stuff outside the frame"
does not contradict "what we see in the frame was, at least, what was literally there at that moment".
The assumption "what we see in the frame was, at least, what was literally there at that moment" is
contingent on the premise that the photograph was not manipulated.
The generation after mine is…
Is that just your assumption, or a generalization from a handful of individuals to a generation, or …
Enough already!