Madonna Under Shark Bay (Composite)
Fujifilm GFX100S II, Fujinon GF55mm F1.7 R WR, f1.7 @ 1/100 second, ISO 400

How many times have you looked at a travel photo (maybe in a brochure or on a website) and thought a location looked amazing, only to discover it wasn’t quite what you expected? Sometimes the disappointment is due to the weather (beautiful sunny days replaced by rain and fog), but often the differences can be more fundamental – such as that lonely beach with crystal clear water, which must have been photographed in the depth of winter because when you visited, it is crowded with sunseekers from dawn to dusk and that clean water is full of curdling sunscreen!

So, what is truth in photography? My point is that most travel photographs are selling us something, so what should we expect? Even the amazing pictures on social media are selling someone’s idea of utopia, somewhere you wish you could visit too!

But are these photos true? They might be ‘real’, but you know how good the iPhone is at editing our photos to make them look simply amazing. Are these still true?

Travel photographs are usually taken to make things look more attractive and exciting, and there’s nothing wrong with that. A good professional photographer will seek out locations and angles that ‘sell’ a destination.

And a lot of travel shots include a generous serving of the photographer’s delight in being at a location, taking photographs. It’s only natural for these photographs to be enhanced to better communicate the wonderful experience. The photos are not just documentary evidence of a location, they are also telling a story, sharing an experience or expressing a passion.

So, when it comes to showing our travel photographs to the world, should we be telling our viewers that the images are ‘real’, but enhanced with a little careful processing? Most people don’t say anything about how a photograph is edited, but I wonder if this will change with the advent of AI? And how much change can you make to a photo before it is no longer ‘true’?

Even more difficult to answer is if we’re trying to share the emotion of visiting a location, define ‘true’. If I warm up the colour balance to make the destination to create a mood, is this still true? If I frame a scene that hides hundreds of tourists visiting the same location, is this truth?

The more I ponder this issue, the more uncomfortable I am with the terms ‘true’ and ‘authenticity’. Perhaps to say our travel photos portray our impressions of a location is a more honest approach. But in the new world we find ourselves in, does it even matter?