ABSTRACT
This chapter considers sceptical and non-sceptical versions of Orthodox theory, as spurs to new theorizing about photography. Together with Walton's "Transparent Pictures", Scruton's "Photography and Representation" is responsible for galvanizing interest in photography as a stand-alone topic of philosophical enquiry—despite still approaching it from within the framework of film. Scruton's significance for Orthodox theory is largely, though not exclusively, negative, arising from one theorist after another taking issue with his scepticism about the possibility of photographic art. Scruton's aesthetic scepticism stems from his belief that the "ideal photograph" is constrained to show us how things stood in a particular place at a particular time. Fictional representation directs our attention to what Scruton takes to be central to aesthetic interest in artistic representation more generally: the primacy of the representation over what is represented as the focus of appreciative attention.
