What makes a photo «real»?

Samuel Buchmann

21.3.2023

Translation: Katherine Martin

Until recently, I had clear expectations of what would happen when I hit the shutter button on a camera. The latest controversy surrounding the Samsung Galaxy S23’s overly sharp photos of the moon, however, has shown that I need to rethink things.

«Samsung caught faking zoom photos of the moon,» read a headline I spotted recently. On closer inspection, however, the statement is neither right nor wrong. What it does instead is raise the following question: what makes a photo «real»? And does it even matter?

An exaggeratedly sharp moon

The arbitrary line between real and fake

So do the smartphone’s photos capture reality or are they fake? You could ask the same question in relation to other issues. What about the fact that certain phones have a soft skin mode? Or that TikTok’s AI recently became capable of replacing my entire face with a «prettier» version complete with jaw surgery? And is that any different to airbrushing a zit in Photoshop?

It’s not a question of «right» or «wrong». There are, however, three questions I ask of any image:

1. What’s the image trying to do?
2. Does the level of image processing match this aim?
3. Is the image an honest representation?

The purpose: documentation, memory or art?

A photo can aim to do various things. At one end of the spectrum, there are documentary images, such as those used in photojournalism or press photography. The goal? A photo as free from the photographer’s influence and as close to human perception as possible. At the other end, there’s art, where anything goes. In the art world, there’s absolutely no need for an image to look realistic. It’s simply the expression of a creative vision.

The rest – holiday photos, celebrity headshots, product images of a beer – fall between these two extremes. While these examples may be anchored in reality, they can deviate from it to varying degrees. I don’t actually care if a sunset looks exactly the same on a smartphone as it does in real life. The most important thing is that the picture can evoke memories of the place where it was taken.

Image processing: optimisation vs. manipulation

Once the purpose of the image is clear, I have different expectations of how an image is processed or altered.

Honesty: do I know what’s happening in the picture?

This lack of knowledge illustrates the real challenge present in photography today: a lack of transparency. «Is this image real?» is the wrong question. The right one is: do I know how this image came about?

Loss of control

The history of photography has always been one of ambiguity, deception and misunderstandings – between people. And now, Samsung’s vivid moon has entered the mix, changing everything once again.

Time for a rethink

I could get het up about this loss of control. But if I did, I’d simply be clinging to an era that’s on its way out. Instead, I’m rethinking things: I’ve always had a certain expectation of what a camera would do when I hit the shutter button. That’s changing now.

So would photos like these be real or not? I don’t care either way. The only thing I want is more honesty – from both photographers and smartphone manufacturers.

Samuel Buchmann

Senior Editor

Samuel.Buchmann@digitecgalaxus.ch

My fingerprint often changes so drastically that my MacBook doesn't recognise it anymore. The reason? If I'm not clinging to a monitor or camera, I'm probably clinging to a rockface by the tips of my fingers.

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