But let’s go back to the idea of the real for a moment. The fulcrum point on which photography perpetually balances, this is an idea accompanied by strongly partisan champions on either side, all of whom stand at the ready to defend their chosen perspective. Observational photography continues to astound and beguile, without doubt. Could this be attributable, in part, to the fact that the boundaries between that which we perceive as real and that which we accept as fiction are so porous, and increasingly, thin? Maybe it’s enough to leave this as the leading question for this next thematic category, which I have, for the sake of shorthand, called… »The Real.«