Articles

Warning: The Objects in the Photograph are not as Real as they Appear

Matt Randle warns us about seeing the world through a lens darkly.

In his book the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), Ludwig Wittgenstein proposes to his reader that “we make to ourselves pictures of facts… The picture is a model of reality” (p.39). Wittgenstein was referring to how one uses language to access reality, but this statement can also be said of photography: for, like language, photography – cinematic or still – exists as a window to the world. However, there is often discord between an object and the object’s appearance in a photograph. Thus false images and expectations are generated through photography.

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