FAQ 3 • Photography in the 21st century
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301. Humans have been striving for a universal language for hundreds of years, and photography has been around for almost 200 years. Why has photography only now become our most “universal language”?
Because in the 21st century three new factors have enhanced photography’s role as a form of “communication” and not merely a form of “illustration.” More
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302. What is meant by “a universal language”?
A truly “universal language” would enable anyone anywhere in the world to create, send, receive, and understand messages to and from anyone else, without the benefit of translation or literacy.
Those requirements eliminate some popular candidates for a “universal language.”
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303. Why is photography more of “a universal language” than other candidates for that title, like music or Esperanto or video?
Because photography is the only medium that is an exception to all four points in #302-more.
Photography has a capability that no other electronic imaging-recording medium has
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304. Why does this website say that “It isn’t just about how the picture looks anymore”?
Because the first questions that people ask about remarkable images that look like photographs — “Is this a real photograph?” and “Can I trust this image?” — are now impossible to confidently answer “just by looking.”
There is no longer a reliable connection between any photo-like image’s appearance and its trustworthiness.
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305. Why does it matter that “There is no longer a reliable connection between appearance and trustworthiness”?
Because it’s a big deal with any language if the audience has no idea when they can trust the message.
Photography is a visual language, so once the trustworthiness of the message can no longer be discerned “just by looking,” the audience must find new ways of deciding when they can trust the message.
“From now on until forever, no one should trust any picture that looks like a photograph unless they are convinced to trust it by non-visual means — that is, a label, an explanation, or a source that they trust.”
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306. Why is the public more skeptical of impressive-looking photographs now when the manipulation of photographs is as old as photography itself?
Because people know — from smartphones and from social media — how much easier it is now to doctor photographs without detection compared to pre-digital times. The reversal of the trust equation
The manipulation of photographs is indeed “as old as photography itself,” but “detectability” is the major difference between then and now.
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307. But is it really that easy to alter things in a digital photograph without making it look less trustworthy?
Yes. As numerous TV commercials demonstrate, the most popular smartphones now use AI to allow quick and easy doctoring of photographs without ready detection by most viewers. See also here.
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308. Won’t advances in technology eventually render the Trust Test obsolete?
No, because the Trust Test will always be based on characteristics and standards that will never be obsolete. (More on #308)
“The 9 characteristics are both simple and timeless, as applicable to photographs made 100 years ago as they will be to photographs made 100 years from now.” Source
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309. But won’t advances in other kinds of imaging technology like video render photography obsolete?
No, because photography will always be able to do two things that no other medium can — not even video.
More
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310. In the age of digital manipulation and AI-generated images, wouldn’t it be simpler for everyone to just not trust any image that looks like a photograph?
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311. So there will never come a day when most people don’t trust any photographs?
No. As explained in #310 more, most people will always trust most photographs that they personally created, with gradually decreasing levels of trust as the source of the photo gets more distant from them.
There will never be absolutes in this area
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312. Why do viewers ask “Is this a real photograph?”
Because they want to know whether they’re seeing an undoctored photograph or something that just looks like an undoctored photograph. (This question is also addressed on this viewpoint page.)
This website never uses the term “real” to describe TTG images except when quoting the term’s public use, as in question in #312. Instead, the terms “undoctored” and “TTG-qualified” are used. More on this
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313. But why do viewers want to know whether they’re seeing an undoctored photograph?
Because “confidence that the photograph is undoctored” is one of the things viewers need if they are to trust that photo.
TTG’s 9 characteristics reflect what viewers want to know
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314. What if I don’t think ANY photograph can ever be a perfect representation of a three-dimensional scene?
(This is a response to P7, which says that a TTG photograph cannot be a “misrepresentation” of the scene that was photographed.)
Then you’re in the right place: your perspective is the same as TTG’s.
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315. Photos don’t have to be objective “facts” to qualify as TTG?
No, they do not. TTG is a 21st-century creation, not a product of the 19th or 20th centuries, when photographs were routinely regarded as “facts.”
TTG operates on the understanding that no photographs are objective “facts,” but rather that all photographs (including news photographs) are subjective, personal “interpretations.”
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316. Why does TTG regard photographs as subjective “interpretations” if the general public still regards photos at objective “facts”?
Most of the public doesn’t still think photographs are objective “facts.”
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317. If all photographs are “subjective” — as TTG says they are — how can any photographs be “trustworthy” too?
Millions of things in life are both “subjective” and “trustworthy.” If we trusted nothing in life that is “subjective,” we could barely function.
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318. What does this website mean when it says that photographers have to “convince” viewers to trust each photograph?
Simply that the “free ride” of the early digital era is over.
Photographers can no longer put images before viewers and assume that viewers will trust the image if it only looks convincing. More on this
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319. Why does TTG say photographs are “claims, not facts”?
That’s a natural consequence of regarding photographs as “subjective” interpretations (see #315–317 above) rather than “objective” documents or “facts.” (A lot has changed since the 20th century.)
When a photographer puts forth a photo with the hope that it will be trusted, a public that sees photographs as “subjective” rather than “objective” will regard that offering from the photographer as “making a claim” rather than “stating a fact.”
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320. Is TTG saying that all photographers should be trying to “convince” viewers to trust their photographs?
No. Getting viewers to “trust” photos simply isn’t a goal for many photographers, and that’s fine.
Many photos and photo-like images are unsuited to the Trust Test.
Most viewers expect images of the kinds on that linked page (above) to focus more on “appearance” than on “trustworthiness” (see this page).
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321. If “accuracy” is defined “as how much the photograph looks like the scene it depicts,” why doesn’t the word “accuracy” appear in the Trust Test?
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322. So “inaccurate” photos can qualify as TTG?
No. If inaccurate photos could qualify as TTG, the TTG label would be worthless: no viewer would knowingly trust an “inaccurate” photograph.
So what’s the story?
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323. How can the most “accurate”-looking depiction of a scene not qualify as TTG?
Because if a photograph undergoes any changes that disqualify it from the Trust Test, it cannot qualify as TTG no matter how much it looks like the scene it depicts.
By the same token, the depiction of a scene that qualifies as TTG may not be the most “accurate”-looking depiction of that scene, at least not with regard to non-“light”-related aspects.
More
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324. But wouldn’t viewers naturally trust more a photograph that has been manipulated to more perfectly depict the subject?
Not if they know (or suspect) that the photo has been doctored or aigmented, because that knowledge (or suspicion) will cause viewers to trust a photograph less, for reasons explained in #323 more.
More on #324
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325. Don’t all photographs lie?
“All” is a fairly sweeping word. If asked to think about it, most people would probably say, “Some photographs lie, and many do not.”
More
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326. Aren’t all photographs fiction?
No. By definition, “fiction” depicts things that are “imagined” or “invented,” while undoctored photographs depict things that are “real.”
Photos are portrayals, not fictions
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327. If photos that meet the Trust Test are not lies (#325), not fiction (#326), not facts (#315), not objective (#316), and not reality (#14), then what are they?
Records. (#14 is in the Welcome FAQ)
When photographs are trustworthy, it is not because those photos are equivalents of real-world scenes but because those photos are reliable records of real-world scenes.
More on the importance of records
The numbering of the FAQ questions will not change — any new questions are added at the bottom and given new numbers — so users can safely make a link to any specific question.