> bending or altering their path of travel probably says something about the photon or the environment being travelled through, more than it does about space and time
But the environment they travel through is space and time.
This is a semantic excursion. I'm bailing myself out of trouble by qualifying my statement as "probably" factual somehow, since it's not trivial to back such a concept.
Semantic in the sense that the word "environment" is a loaded term.
I'll offer this much: photons are particles. As particles, we know them to be part-time resident constituents of massive objects. That massive objects are representative of large quantities of energy trapped and oscillating in bounded standing waveforms.
We know that the empty vacuum of space really is mostly void, but also that a lot of photons (particles) are still traversing the void quite a bit.
So, space/time, while an empty void, where phenomena transit or conduct themselves theough said empty medium, is still an environment with varying concentrations of activity.
If an neutron manages to be ejected from a supernova, and is directed toward our solar syatem, and is influenced to fall toward the sun, but, miraculously passes straight through the sun, without colliding with any other particles, only to travel onward toward the center of the galaxy, landing in a supermassive black hole some millennia from now, what would you say about the environment this neutron experienced as it fortuitously passed through the center of the sun, without experiencing any collisions?
Would to rob it of all the other qualities, and just label it space and time? Or would you refer to it as an environment, with activity transpiring, in addition to be also being a realm of space and time?
> As particles, we know them to be part-time resident constituents of massive objects.
I don't think you can say we know that without explain what that means. In no part of physics do we discuss part-time resident constituents.
Your comments use a lot of terms that seem to be of your own creation. Unfortunately, these terms make it hard for your points to be understood because they lack the shared naming conventions that the field of physics uses to discuss these phenomena. Standard naming conventions, both in programming and physics, are enormously important in conveying ideas between people.
But the environment they travel through is space and time.