Myth of Photographic Truth

The myth of photographic truth is a theory that works to explain why people are more prone to believing what they see when looking at photography. Photos have a particularly powerful means of convincing people what they're seeing is "true" becauase it appears to be a simple capture of "real life", opposed to other forms of art that are known to be created by the human hand. Though photos are supposedly objective, this isn't necessairly true, especially with the advancement of digital photography. With new artistic programssuch as photoshop and other similiar apps, as our authors points out, it's easier than ever to manipulate images. (18) Sturken and Cartwright discuss the terms studium and punctum as terms that contribute to interpretations of photos. Studium describes the function of the photograph (17) while punctum refers to the emotional element of the photograph. (18)

In this picture, if one didn't know any better, someone could think we searched out a couple of look-alikes, or were born as triplets in order to simultaneously appear in the same image all at the same time. In reality however, this was a technique used in photoshop and the image portreyal of several "Dan Tarsettis" at once is simply a photographic myth.