Does a photograph capture reality?

Does a photograph capture reality? I want to think so. Does a photograph duplicate what I see? No.

A few months ago, when I began spending more time on my hobby, I wanted to take photos that duplicate reality. I'd take the picture and that would be it. It might be out of focus, badly framed, or boring, but the picture would be the picture, the end.

I've been using a Kodak camera for several years, but I thought I should actually learn something about digital photography, so I read a couple of books. I was dismayed that about half of each book was devoted to manipulating photos in Adobe Photoshop. Pictures can be brightened or darkened. Colors can be changed. Soft areas can be sharpened and sharp areas can be softened. This was not for me! My photos would duplicate what I see, the way film does!

Well, I was ignoring realities of photography. I have a pair of 35mm film photos of my dad in our driveway washing a car. I remember taking the pictures because I was in a tree, looking down. As an experiment, I had varied the aperture or shutter speed, and the result was the same car in different shades of blue. Did either one capture reality? Yes, in the sense that both photos showed my dad washing a car. No, in the sense that at least one of the shades of blue did not match the shade I saw. Not only that, but different people could look at the same car and see different colors. What is reality, anyway?

Digital cameras themselves alter visual reality. The light sensors in cameras are not capable of recording the full range of brightness we see in the world. The result is that, sometimes, bright areas of a photo are completely white, with no details. For example, here's a trumpeter swan.

trumpeter swan (Columbus Zoo)

My eyes saw indications of feathers all over the swan's back, but the camera could not record those details.

washed-out white feathers

A similar result is possible in shadows and other dark areas that end up completely black. I haven't yet learned how to handle this.

Cameras also do their own manipulation of images. My Nikon can produce three different sizes of JPEG files, with each size requiring different processing. Heck, the mere production of a JPEG image requires manipulation of the information that comes from the light sensor. What's the difference between the camera's manipulating an image and my manipulating an image? Intent? The camera does what it does, but I can decide to manipulate an image. I have nothing against digital post-processing in general, but it feels sort of dishonest for me to engage in it. But I'm a hypocrite! I manipulate photos by cropping them.

So, does a photograph capture reality? Does it matter? What's my goal, a nice picture straight from the camera, or a nice picture? I don't have Photoshop, but I do have Corel PaintShop Pro...