Photographic truth and manipulation
We know photographs can be false yet we want them to be true. Indeed, the desire for photographic veracity has persisted, perhaps even intensified, even as knowledge about image manipulation becomes more widespread. #
Reflecting on the Oscar ceremonies, MediaGuardian has documented the widespread use of Photoshop to enhance celebrity photographs in fashion and gossip magazines. Every cover, says one media insider, has been altered to some degree, with some of these changes exposed in the “Photoshop Hall of Shame” and “Photoshop Disasters”. So common is the practice that when an October 2008 Newsweek cover of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was not airbrushed, conservative anchors on Fox television complained that this amounted to liberal bias. (Fox knew about the political power of such changes because it had earlier manipulated the photos of two New York Times journalists it wanted to discredit). #
Despite being widespread, digital manipulation provokes anxiety and unease, especially when news photographs are involved. The scandals surrounding Brian Walski’s 2003 photos from Iraq and Adnan Hajj’s 2006 pictures from Lebanon led to both men being fired from their jobs, and the governments of Iran and the US have been criticized when they released altered military images of missiles and a general. #
What is commonplace in one visual domain (fashion) is regarded as taboo in another (news). Yet both realms are still regulated by a desire for photographs to be accurate and authentic documents. The persistence and power of this desire despite the long history of photographic manipulation (chemical and digital) is something that needs explanation. #
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8 Responses to “Photographic truth and manipulation”
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[...] by the ubiquitous photoshoping, I suspect, we also like it. As David Campbell suggests on his blog, “desire for photographic veracity has persisted, perhaps even intensified, even as knowledge about [...]
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[...] a cover story in which the models photographs have not been ‘Photoshopped’ (thereby confirming, as I’ve noted previously, that digital manipulation is the norm in this visual [...]
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[...] meaning, manipulation and Photoshop have been prominent recently (see my previous posts here and here, with some updates amongst the comments for [...]
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[...] challenges for creative practice Photographic truth and manipulation # Photographic truth and Photoshop # Photographic manipulation: World Press Photo needs to be [...]
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[...] by the ubiquitous photoshoping, I suspect, we also like it. As David Campbell suggests on his blog, “desire for photographic veracity has persisted, perhaps even intensified, even as knowledge [...]
Here is an example of photo manipulation used by radical Serbian sources to justify the Srebrenica genocide:
http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2008/12/photo-forgeries-of-serb-victims-around.html
Fred Ritchin has written a good report for Consumer Reports WebWatch in the US that details the variety of digital imagery on the web, and the guidelines some publications use to maintain standards. See his discussion, and a link to the full report, at: http://www.pixelpress.org/afterphotography/?p=150
Now we have a controversy about a Washington magazine photoshopping an image of President Obama – see Susan Moeller’s commentary of this case at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-moeller/media-literacy-101-the-et_b_189488.html
This practice and the issues it raise never go away…