They Myth of Photographic Truth

In Chapter One of, "Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture", author's Sturken and Cartwright often discuss the idea of "the myth of photographic truth". What I took from the reading was that the myth of photographic truth is the notion that many people have of the "truthfulness" of a photograph. As Sturken and Cartwright write, "a photograph is often perceived to be an unmediated copy of the real world that provides unbiased truth"(17). However, this is very naive.
In today's modern society, the ability to "manipulate or alter"(18) a photograph to ones desires is simple. People are able to change their looks all together through digital editing websites or applications such as Adobe Photoshop, or even something as simple as Instagram.
Due to such technologies- photographs can no longer be accepted as the truth the once were- no longer are photographs reliable for any sort of information. The "truth-value"(21) of today's photographs is much different from those back in the 50's.
A photo of myself that is representative of the myth of photographic truth would be a picture I have on my Facebook- and the caption reads, "just a quick nap on the roof".

This would lead everyone to believe that I was literally sleeping on the roof to my dorm, considering I have a blanket and pillow with me as well.
However, I wasn't actually sleeping, I was just pretending to be. Here is a photo of moments later, one I did not post to Facebook.

This is also a good instance in which "context influences the perception of the audience"(21). I wrote on Facebook that I was taking a nap, and in addition, the presence of the pillow and blanket would surely provide context and support the impression I was sleeping on the roof, even if this was not the truth of the photograph.