AN IMAGE IS NOT TRUTH. It may be well far from it.

Last weekend, I hiked to the Wisdom Tree. Though I didn’t feel any wiser, I did find a lot of tourists. You wouldn’t be able to tell from this, though, which just reminds me how photography can do so much to shape perception. The truth is I waited for people to clear. I see this image in its current form, but I remember what was beyond the frame.

I think what makes judging photography interesting is that it straddles self-expression and reality. A photo is whatever you want it to be. I don’t expect reality when I look at a photo, because it’s entirely up to its maker’s interpretation. I also doubt that any experience we share online is not in some way polished. Even on Snapchat, we probably go through a few captions and retake a few videos first before posting. I don’t say this as criticism, but rather as an admission of what’s natural to self-expression. And with today’s technology, self-expression is very natural.

An image is not truth. It may well be far from it. It is in all likelihood colored by opinions, moods, goals, ideas, and experiments, all with indefinite life spans. We should expect no certainty from a photo, aside from how certainly flexible it is.