I've met people who said:
Photography shows reality.
Painting shows imagination.

Reality is the foundation of photography.
But not necessarily its subject.

With an exposure of 1/1000 second, something is sharp.
With an exposure of 1/10 second, it does not.
Is a blurred image less true?

Stahlgesicht:
In reality(tm) this image never existed.
For 30 seconds, glowing fragments of steel wool simply kept flying into the lake.
Also, right is down here.
Is this a real photograph?

Klaue:
The technique ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) goes even further:
I was lying beneath a tree in a park, with the sun above me.
I used a longer exposure and rotated the camera during capturing.
This claw does not exist in "our" time.
Is this a real photograph?

Frankfurter Leuchtspur:
Every person would have seen the upper half like this.
The lower half never existed in this form.
A ship moved through the frame for 91 seconds.
Is this a real photograph?

Our eyes see only a small part of reality.
Our cameras see differently.

Slower.
Faster.
Wider.
Narrower.

In the photographs above,

• the sparks were real,
  
• the movement was real,
  
• the time was real.

Yet no human could have seen them this way.

What is a real photograph?