During the history of photography, there is an existing controversy: should we believe in photographs? Commonsense suggests there is a relation between photographic images and truth. In Susan Sontag’s On Photography (1977), the viewpoint “Photographs furnish evidence. Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we’re shown a photograph of it.” Demonstrates the superficial objectivity of photographs. And also, she described “A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given things happened. The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that something exist, which is like what’s in the picture.” We do not need to trust the alleged images; the experience with snapshot or subjective is enough to convince us that photography is not representing the “general fact”. Whatever reality of cameras and the subjects in the pictures, photography is a personal behaviour of a photographer. Camera be controlled by photographer, subjects be chosen by photographer, we can aware the extremely personal style of some of the photographic virtuosi like Araki Nobuyoshi and Cindy Sherman. That kind of personal style is the obvious evidence of subjectively of photographs.

Yunya Yin. Self-portrait evidence inner exploration of photographer Photography between objectivity and subjectivity. Frontiers in Art Research (2021) Vol. 3, Issue 3: 28-31. https://doi.org/10.25236/FAR.2021.030306.

[1] Susan Sontag. (1977.7). on photography  Published by the penguin, p,5  p,14.

[2] Jim Harrison (2004)  The games of night. 

[3] David Levi Strauss.(2005). "Between the eyes". Photography and belief, aperture foundation,p, 77.

[4] Frederick Gross(2012).Diane Arbus's 1960s: Auguries of Experience University of Minnesota Press, pp. 31-32

[5] Willett Clark (1936), the exploration of the inner world.

[6] Araki Nobuyoshi (1976), My photographic philosophy, Wu yu Magazine, 2005 p,16

[7] Takanashi Yutaka (1966), Image hunter, Daily phoroghy Magazine.

[8] Kendall L. Walton (2003), Transparent pictures: on the nature of photographic realism, p,14-21