'Truth' in the eye of the beholder?

After the Cartier-Bresson exhibition I've added his focus on the 'decisive moment' (images à la sauvette) to my preoccupation of a fortnight ago about truth/integrity in photographs. I love his visually arresting pictures and the story each appears to tell. But whose story is it?

Obviously I'm not claiming to be doing anything on a par with Cartier-Bresson but I deliberately left yesterday's blip without words because I wanted to find out what story it was telling. I was surprised and fascinated that a majority interpreted it as the child telling the adult what to do.

I had the advantage of watching the scene for about a minute. My pictures are:
child watches man kick snowball
child and man kick snowball together
man starts rolling snowball, leaving child behind
child turns away to do something else
child follows after man
child comes alongside man and is ignored.

In the picture I blipped I saw the child's posture as being disconsolate and abandoned. But of course that's what I went out to find! Who knows whether my - equally subjective - interpretation of was any nearer 'truth'.

This is my first picture with my new compact - I went for the Sony DSC-HX20V. It was impossible for the first 30 minutes when I tried to be in charge but better once I showed it a bit more respect.