Seeing Is Not Believing, Believing Is Not Seeing

. It happened suddenly, a television commercial brought it all together for me. An advertisement for the Dublin Times gave me a thirty-second crash course in media studies. The film was scratchy, gritty, high in contrast, and black and white – visual clues to the proposed truth value of documentary photography. Images flickered depicting a brawny youth in leather, with military boots and a shaved head racing down the street, past two concerned elderly ladies toward the viewer. Just committed a crime? The voice-over stated, “Seen one way, a picture tells a certain story.” The images cut to another view where the youth was now seen rushing past the elderly ladies away from the viewer towards a well-dressed businessman turning as...