JOURNAL 9

Re: Photography and truth

1. Please email Bettina one of your own family snapshots before class. The snapshot could be from any time in your past but it should have you pictured in it. How true is this snapshot? Are you posing? What is really going on behind the photo? (It would be helpful to insert the snapshot in your journal entry as well--thank you)

2. The reading discusses photography and the truthfulness of photos. It also mentions Errol Morris--you may know of him from his Oscar winning documentary maker (Fog of War) and his other documentaries, Gates of Heaven; Standard Operating Procedure; Thin Blue Line--if you have not heard of him LOOK HIM UP). Given the reading, think about (and select one to write about) the following questions: Why do we trust photographs? How do we use photos and other images to verify the truth? How can photographs be a stand in (or not) for what really happened?

John Heartfield photomontage, 1933