What a Photograph Was Always Supposed to Prove

A photograph has always seemed to promise something no other kind of image could. A painting interprets. A drawing invents. A written account depends on the judgment of whoever wrote it. But a photograph appeared to sit closer to the world than any of these, because it was made by a machine that recorded whatever stood in front of it. The camera opened, and light did the rest. Because of that, a photograph came to feel less like a statement about the world and more like a piece of it, carried back intact.