Pictures of Persons

In this paper the question of what pictures can and cannot achieve is discussed from the point of view of its primary subject matter: persons in a moral space. Photographs of persons are standardly treated as correct portraits. But in what sense are they? We also view our mirror image as faithfully portraying our selves, but in what sense does it? A face is not just a mere object out there. In a face one sees a person—and the person looks back at one. The reciprocal exchanging of facial expressions is something pictures normally fail to render. To see how pictures fail to render what is central to moral space is to see what pictures, photographs included, can and cannot do.