Truth in Photography
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  • Introduction
  • Looking for Truth in a Digital Age
  • Understanding Family
  • Sense of Place
  • Education
  • Manipulation
  • Advocacy
  • Community
  • Concerned
  • Citizen
  • Culture
  • Abstraction
  • Abstraction
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FALL 2021

New Jersey, 2017. © Arielle Bobb-Willis

The truth of photographic images has been challenged since the 19th century when the means for making them were invented. While the medium was embraced by the public at large, photographers have grappled with the methods and techniques available to them, experimenting with technologies as they emerged and discovering the capacity of the medium to represent the world they experienced.
 
Photographs are inherently subjective in the ways in which they are made and perceived. There is no absolute truth in the photographic image. Photographers frame the reality that they see, whether the process is spontaneous or planned.


The truth of photography relies not only on the integrity of the image, but on its accessibility. If truth in image making is a commodity, how much is it worth, and how do we determine its value?

VIEWING TRUTH IN PHOTOGRAPHY

The exhibitions can be viewed in sequence or in whichever order the viewer chooses. Select a theme from the menu bar at the top of the page, or click one of the buttons below.​​
LOOKING FOR TRUTH IN A DIGITAL AGE
UNDERSTANDING FAMILY
SENSE OF PLACE

LOOKING FOR TRUTH IN A DIGITAL AGE

Twenty years after 9/11, the world is forever different. The knowledge of the tragic events of that day reminds us of the looming uncertainty about what can happen. On any given day, what appears to be ordinary can become catastrophic. Questions about what transpired are imprinted in our minds, and the documentary evidence raises complicated questions about truth in photography.

Today, we are inundated with photographs at an ever escalating and alarming rate, but instead of becoming iconic, many of these images sow more confusion than clarity. Misinformation and photo-manipulation pose overwhelming challenges to our ability to make sense of what we hear, see, and read.
In this installment of Looking for Truth in a Digital Age, we feature:
  • a blending of selfie and self-portrait through iPhone images by Quil Lemons
  • Nancy Burson's deep fascination with luminous flashes of light
  • an exploration of improvisation in photography with Arielle Bobb-Willis​

MERGING THE SELFIE AND SELF-PORTRAIT
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Quil Lemons

Photographer Quil Lemons discusses the two biggest challenges behind his newest photo series: using the iPhone to create art and bringing self-portraiture into the age of the selfie.
PHOTO ESSAY
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QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT
Nancy Burson

In luminous flashes of light, artist/photographer Nancy Burson sees physics at work. She believes that quantum theory holds the keys to the deepest mysteries of the cosmos.
PHOTO ESSAY
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IMPROVISATION IN PHOTOGRAPHY
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Arielle Bobb-Willis

Drawing inspiration from paintings, photographer Arielle Bobb-Willis incorporates improvisation into her unique style of photography.
PHOTO ESSAY
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UNDERSTANDING FAMILY

​Family is both what we inherit and what we make. It is inherently the way we bind with one and another and understand the essential elements of kinship. Defined by relationships we perceive to be genuine, family is remembered and memorialized through individual photographs and family albums that may or may not represent the truth.

SANTA BARBARA
Diana Markosian

Diana Markosian utilizes photography to investigate and re-tell her family's story, in work that is both conceptual and documentary.
PHOTO ESSAY
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FAMILY MATTERS
Gillian Laub

In turning her photo series on her family into a book, Gillian Laub had to navigate the fine line of showing her strongest images while remaining respectful to her loved ones.
PHOTO ESSAY
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LOGWOOD FAMILY ALBUM

A family album with photographs from the 1870s through the 1950s was discovered for sale in an antique mall. Can the history of the Logwood family be uncovered through the images left behind?
PHOTO ESSAY
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SENSE OF PLACE

Sense of place is often revealed through the landscape and filtered through human experience. Can photographs reveal the truth of a place? How do we see the world differently if we are from a particular place or if we are a stranger or visitor? The way we photograph a place depends on our prior knowledge, biases, beliefs, and an awareness of the significance of what we are seeing and feeling. Framing, composition, and the relationship between light and dark are telling, but ultimately, the perception of a place is personal and the truth is never absolute.

ENCOUNTERING LANDSCAPES
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An-My Lê

Returning to Vietnam for the first time as an adult, An-My Lê felt connected to the landscape, and found that landscape photography allowed her to work on different levels, bringing forth the past and the future in the present moment.
PHOTO ESSAY
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RURAL
Raymond Depardon

Magnum photographer Raymond Depardon grew up in France in a family of farmers, and that connection to the rural world has influenced his work around the world, from the United States to Africa.
PHOTO ESSAY
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DECOLONIZING PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY
Tamara Abdul Hadi

Iraqi photographer Tamara Abdul Hadi reimagines a book she grew up with, Return to the Marshes, juxtaposing and overlapping the original photographs with her own, as well as photographs from Iraqis in Iraq and the diaspora.
PHOTO ESSAY
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  • Edition
    • Winter 2023
    • Fall 2022
    • Spring 2022
    • Winter 2022
    • Fall 2021
    • Summer 2021
    • Spring 2021
    • Winter 2021
  • Truth In Photography Is...
  • Share Your Truth
  • About
  • Submissions