What is truly sensational about the invention of photography is that it bridges the gap between the physical world and its pictorial representation in a way which is not exclusively dependent on man’s artistic fantasy or his creative ability. And in this sense, no one produces a photograph without letting this physical principle behind the camera take over the action, at the precise moment when the picture is made.
If the photographer did not stand apart from this physical genesis, he would then be the sole creator of the photograph and his pictures could then, like those of an artist, lay claim only to some ideal significance. They could not claim to be physically verifiable. But the physical verifiability is exactly what we demand of a photograph.