Photography seems like a truthful medium. Photographs are used for scientific and forensic evidence for their supposed truthfulness. Even Edgar Allan Poe thought daguerreotypes disclosed “a more absolute truth, a more perfect identity of aspect with the thing represented.”

So why did Charles Traub call his new book of photographs “Taradiddle”?

“A taradiddle is by definition a petty lie, a little falsehood or trifling told often to amuse or embellish a story,” he said. “As our world is full of them, seen and witnessed through advertising, P.R., propaganda, flirtations, staged events and presentations of all sorts, I simply came to the conclusion that even the straightest of photographs made in real-world witness was also such.”