The camera cannot lie...

Discuss the cliché: “The camera cannot lie is, thus, part of a deep but misplaced notion of the camera’s veracity as an agent of recording.”



"The camera cannot lie. But it can be an accessory to untruth." The cliché that the camera cannot lie… is a misplaced notion of the camera’s veracity as an agent of recording. At the beginning, the camera was able to produce photographs known for the ability to record an objective image of events with an assumed veracity that painting and drawing could never claim with equal authority. The camera leaves traces of the past and the mark of historical significance, it clings to images that gives a talismanic quality and presence as evidence of what was. The art of photography provided images of truth and a history otherwise lost and unavailable to us.

Although the camera itself cannot lie, the person behind it can. Many photographers today aims to illustrate emotion, and creativity and thus they are no longer satisfie...