reality
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This website never equates any photograph with “reality.”
No photograph can ever be exactly equivalent to three-dimensional “reality” the way humans see that reality. Numerous limitations of the medium make that impossible.
In the distant past, photographers often felt obligated to remind the public that “Photographs are not reality.”
But there’s not much need to remind people of that anymore, because the public’s likening of photographs to “reality” has radically declined in the digital age (see questions #314 and following).
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Times have changed
Back in the film era, especially in the early days of photography, the public was much more likely to equate photographs with “reality” because a photograph was often the most perfect depiction available of an actual scene.
But in the 21st century, numerous newer technologies (including “virtual reality”) have supplanted photographs’ former superiority in depicting real-world scenes.
It is now diffiult to find people who still equate two-dimensional photographs with three-dimensional “reality.”
See also the entries on real, realistic, portrayal, record, subjective, and photographic literacy.