Photographs distort body parts because they lack the perceiver’s synthetic totality

Evidence

It comes as a shock when a photograph registers an enormous enlargement of Pierre’s hands as he holds them forward (because the camera grasps them in their own dimension and without synthetic connection with the corporal totality), for we perceive that these same hands appear without enlargement if we look at them with the naked eye. In this sense the body appears within the limits of the situation as a synthetic totality of life and action. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 903

Categorization

• XREF: Anticipates film and photography theory about the camera’s non-perspectival mechanical gaze, later developed by Merleau-Ponty and Bazin. — connects to: The image is constituted by a nihilating structure, not by revived perception — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 230; Perception of bodies differs in original structure, not merely enrichment, from inanimate perception; Seeing a body part detached from its whole produces an uncanny horror response (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how does this account of the camera’s distortion square with later claims that photography is a window on reality?

Broader Connections

• Perception of bodies differs in original structure, not merely enrichment, from inanimate perception #complicates (0.80)
• Seeing a body part detached from its whole produces an uncanny horror response #complicates (0.75)
• The body seen from another’s viewpoint is a thing, not lived #qualifies (0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 923