Walter Benjamin famously fretted about when he described the paradox of
photography in general. The camera, artfully used, he wrote, was
"incapable of photographing a tenement or a rubbish heap without
transfiguring it." It turns even "abject poverty itself, by handling it in
a modish, technically perfect way, into an object of enjoyment."
Found at
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/arts/design/17KIMM.html