Practice question · Multiple choice
Peirce classified the photograph as an index because light physically imprints the subject onto chemistry, yet Bayard staged his own death in 1840. What tension does Bayard's portrait expose between photographic fact and meaning?
Hints
- Does staging a scene prevent light rays from reflecting off the sitter onto the plate?
- Why can a photograph be completely genuine as an imprint while remaining entirely false as an account?
Show the answer
B. A staged subject remains physically recorded even when the scene is a fiction
Why
An index guarantees a physical trace, not narrative honesty. Bayard exploited the camera's mechanical fidelity to stage an imposture, showing that semiotic causality does not guarantee truth value.
Practise The Birth of Photography and Its First Theory
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