Naturalism is the idea that a picture should show the world as it really looks, without obvious style or invention. It suggests that an image can record reality directly, without visual conventions or codes shaping what we see. Many critics argue that this is never fully possible, because every image involves choices.
In photography the term is also linked to Peter Henry Emerson, whose 1889 book Naturalistic Photography argued that photographs should match the way the human eye sees. See naturalistic photography and realism.
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