Part of this chapter gave me flashbacks to AP English back in high school. Photography is a form of communication, so it is not too surprising that in a photography, there are both denotative and connotative implications. In English, the words house, abode, and residence all have pretty much the same denotative meaning; they are all private living quarters. However, each word has a slightly different feel, and the context can change which word seems to be most appropriate. In photography, there is what's in front of the camera, but the choices the photographer makes gives the picture a certain feel. Just like written language cannot escape from subject meaning, neither can pictures. Some photographs may be more like prose -straight, documentary- and others may be more poetic -abstract- and communicate their message in a less straight forward manner.
The issue seems to be that people are expecting strict prose from photography when there is a full spectrum of literary styles to be explored. It may have been easier with a binary perspective, thinking that photographs should either be documentary or abstract, but just like all dichotomies, there can be so much grey area in between that people can't pinpoint where they are on the spectrum. Rather than fussing about whether a photograph is strictly "true,"a more interesting question could be "What is the photographer trying to say?"
Q: When does a photograph cross the line from trying to convey a more abstract connotative meaning to being deceptive?
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