We accept artifice in the frame, generally. We accept that the photographer hired that model, or arranged those objects. We accept that there was some post processing, be it only slight contrast adjustments or an edge burn. We accept that, at the very least, the photographer stole a section of reality at a moment in time and encased it in a rectangle.
The contents of a photograph are a mixture or reality and artifice, in somewhat variable proportions, but always a mixture.
Why do we assume that the process surrounding the photograph, if it is described, is objectively true? Whether the process of making the image is "part of" the art in some sense, or merely "context" it's altogether too often trotted out along with the image. If you're going to trot it out, make it good.
Shoot it with you umpty-megapixel DSLR, and then write a story about lugging your 8x10 around, developing the film in Kona Coffee, fixing it in a mixture of honey and your own urine, and scanning the result on your Husqvarna T9000 scanner. If you're a photojournalist this might be a problem, but almost nobody is, so for most of us, why not?
Is this satire? Partly, but not entirely. Even I am not 100% sure how much.
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