Efforts on approaching truth on photograph one step ahead of optical reality a study on Sebastião Salgado's 'Migrations' project

Since its public announcement in France in 1839, the photograph has been accepted as a literal record of nature, and its document and reality value has been given to it from the very beginning. Although it recorded the world before its view as it is by using the possibilities of optics, in the hands of human beings who invented and used it for their desires, it sometimes visualized the imagination and sometimes became a manipulation tool hiding behind the title of representative of reality. Based on the optical objectivity of a photograph and its subjectivity originating from the producer and consumer, this study will discuss how much the photograph can present reality and the truth. Within the framework of the discussion in question, the 'Migrations' project of independent documentary photographer Sebastião Salgado will be examined, and it will be discussed to what extent a documentary photographer, who has signed off on long-term projects, can visualize the truth.