Photography and truth

Does the photograph necessarily represent a truth?  Barthes seems to suggest that it does; however, this is an extremely dangerous acceptance and one that is based on viewer subjectivity when truth, I would contend is universal.  He identifies "truth and reality in a unique emotion" (77) stemming from the punctum and his interaction with the Winter Garden photograph.  His notion of the punctum is based on a subjective view of the photograph.  What is the punctum for me, is not necessarily the punctum for someone else.  Even if the "unique emotion" that the particular punctum for an individual stimulates is a photographic truth, it is not necessarily an absolute truth.  If we accept Barthes' assertion that the photograph, by definition is "what has been" (85), we accept only that it captures a reality, not a truth; the truth he asserts is rather a truth in regards to the nature of photography and what attracts a viewer to a particular photograph, not the absolute truths that are universal.  

Furthermore, this reality is not necessarily truthful; a photograph can be manipulated and indeed the reading, as Barthes acknowledges, is subjective, as well as, what the photographer chooses to photograph and how.  The potential for photography to become a propagandistic or otherwise distorting agent is enormous.  Barthes contends that the madness of photography is that it is a representation that can assure him of the past of a thing: "with the Photograph, my certainty is immediate" (115), but with digital photography and the easy manipulation of photographs, this blind acceptance poses an enormous threat.  

This brings to mind Barthes' discussion of the Photograph as a subversive agent, "not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks" (38).  In light of the advances in digital technology the potential for photography to "think" expands and becomes something uncontrollable by the public, but increasingly controlled by the agents that employ photography.  Barthes describes the photograph as violent "because it fills the sight by force" (91); though while he uses this to transition into his discussion of photography reminding him of his imminent death whether he like it or not, he does not address the potential for this characteristic to manipulate the viewer.  I found interesting the similar language used by Barthes and Keenan; similar to how Keenan viewed language as a violent light breaking into the private, Barthes employs similar language also to refer to the knowledge forcefully imparted by the Photograph.  

Thus we return to the notion of knowledge and whether knowing more is "enlightenment," whether knowledge leads to action (Keenan), whether the photograph can be an agent of action.  A representation of reality, I would agree, in Barthes' terms that it captures something, that has been, even if it is only the particular frequencies of light existing in a moment; to accept blindly any more would be to put put oneself at risk of being manipulated; it is not necessarily objective or without mediator.  The Photograph is complicated by the tension between reality and truth.  Truths, I would argue are universal and objective, something that the photograph perhaps can be, but is not necessarily.