Early documentary photographers faced a dilemma that painters had never confronted so sharply. A camera records whatever lies before it, indiscriminately, yet the photographer must still choose where to point it, when to release the shutter, and which of many frames to print. Critics who praised photography for its supposed objectivity overlooked these decisions. A single scene of a crowded tenement could be framed to arouse pity, to provoke outrage, or to invite detached study, depending entirely on the photographer's angle and timing. The medium's authority, then, rested on a paradox: images that appeared to be neutral transcriptions of reality were in fact shaped at every stage by human judgment.