A Man Keeps These in Mind When Using the Internet

Errol Morris’s 8 principles of photography:

1. All photographs are posed.
2. The intentions of the photographer are not recorded in a photographic image. (You can imagine what they are, but it’s pure speculation.)
3. Photographs are neither true nor false. (They have no truth-value.)
4. False beliefs adhere to photographs like flies to flypaper.
5. There is a causal connection between a photograph and what it is a photograph of. (Even photoshopped images.)
6. Uncovering the relationship between a photograph and reality is no easy matter.
7. Most people don’t care about this and prefer to speculate about what they beleive about a photograph.
8. The more famous a photograph is, the more likely it is that people will claim it has been posed or faked.

via Austin Kleon, whose blog is mucho worthwhile