The photograph is a moment in space and time. It is the photographer’s concept, not necessarily the viewers. How do you classify Kirlian photographs, photo grams or abstract works such as Vortographs, etc.? There are too many types of photos to be bound by your narrow interpretation of what constitutes the working precepts of a photograph. If you are only including documentary photography into this tiny definition, then yes, it can show a moment in space and time. Therefore if somebody takes a picture of a ball of yarn and its deterioration over a year it is likely tell a reliable story.

As a photographer you are constantly manipulating the viewer. There are lighting techniques to make the object appear larger or smaller angles

"…there is not a particle of art in the most beautiful scene of nature. The art is men alone; it is subjective and not objective." (Robert Demachy, "On the Straight Print," in Jonathan Green, Camera Work, A Critical Anthology, New York: Aperture, 1973, p. 119.) "…apart from the experiences of subjects, there is nothing, nothing, nothing, bare nothingness." (Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, Corrected Edition, New York: The Free Press, 1978, p. 167.)

“Photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are.”

Though the photograph may be an objective thing, our perception of it is always tinged with subjectivity. The "story" unfolds in the mind of the person viewing the photograph. Even if you could nail truth to the wall, everyone would perceive it differently. That doesn't make the photographer a liar--he might be able and willing to tell the truth. The question is, how can we know with certainty what is real and what is not in a photograph? How do you believe that somebody is speaking truth or not. Suppose you go on a trip to a beautiful place and want to tell your friends about it. How would you? If you speak about it why should they believe you? They have never seen that place (say). Suppose you capture that site, with say still photography camera or a video camera. Why should one believe on the pictures on the video or your words? If photographs are not true, then any other means of communication is not true. anything can be manipulated to make a something look better than what it is. We are aware the models in advertisements are airbrush and tailored by a computer to look better than they really do, but one would still buy the cosmetics to make yourself look beautiful than you are. The same thing photographs are doing for them. then how do you say that something is true unless you see it in its natural form. so saying that photographer is a liar and that any photographs don’t speak out the truth is questionable.

Even with holiday pictures the perception of the photograph and the story will be different from the person taking the pictures, for example. A man

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