Editing: What's the Harm?

It is so easy to construct a photo the way you desire. You can change lighting, change the way objects or people are positioned, alter the zoom, etc. With newer editing technologies the mainstream media has found it very easy to manipulate photos in a way that works best for them. This is betrayal of information, and it is when the public discovers the truth about these alterations that it becomes a larger issue.

In the summer of 1968, Fidel Castro (right) approved the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. As a result Carlos Franqui (middle) cut off relations with the regime and went into exile in Italy so he was removed from photographs, as depicted in the image below. Franqui decided to speak out about his feelings of being erased from photographs. He wrote:


I discover my photographic death.
Do I exist?
I am a little black,
I am a little white,
I am a little shit,
On Fidel's vest.



His words speak of his 'photographic death', by which he compares the act of cropping his image from photographs to his metaphysical death because he is no longer present. This was one of the first times in history, that a public figure brought significant attention to the act of being erased from images. Franqui's reaction to being purposefully cropped out of photos marks an important moment in which political figures brought attention to the manipulation of photos in mainstream media.

Years later, in February 1982, National Geographic magazine brought forth the alarming presence of photographic editing in magazines because of an uproar in the public. In the National Geographic magazine cover story on Egypt by Gorden Gahen (shown below), the Great Pyramid of Giza was digitally moved to fit the magazine's vertical format. Tom Kennedy, who became the director of photography at National Geographic after the cover was manipulated, stated that "We no longer use that technology to manipulate elements in a photo simply to achieve a more compelling graphic effect. We regarded that afterwards as a mistake, and we wouldn't repeat that mistake today".



The example of the altering of the pyramids in National Geographic magazine created a large buzz in the media and the public. This was one of the first examples of a time in which a large media publication, National Geographic, had to write a formal apology to its public for misrepresenting the truth through the act of photography. It was the remarkable action of concerned citizens that discovered the alteration of the pyramids, felt that the public deserved the truth and acknowledged that media does not have the right or authority to misrepresent anything for their own benefit. By private citizens acting as watch dogs in the public sphere, they effectively held mainstream media accountable for the information they presented to the public.

Photo Tampering: A History

Dating back to the development of photography, individuals have constantly been tampering with photographic images to suit their own needs. Photography, upon its conception was viewed as a medium that would accurately depict reality. It was believed that whatever the photographer saw through the lens of the camera would be produced onto a medium as a permanent representation of the image seen. That was a very utopic view of the act of photography, that with the development of technology became easily and frequently manipulated.

Firstly, the issue of staging a photograph becomes an issue. How the photographer chooses to capture an event or a person can be greatly different from how others interpret the same image. Likewise, a man's perspective is different than a woman's, a child's perspective is different than an adult's, a working class citizen's perspective is different than the bureaucracy's, etc. The many forms of perspective highlight the important issue of truth and the perception thereof.

Photography has now become more of an art form then a representation of reality. People are able to construct the makeup of a photograph to portray what they want. People or props can be added or removed from the photo, lighting can be changed, and with the development of newer technologies such as PhotoShop and airbrushing, there are endless opportunities to edit and manipulate photos.

http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/

The meaning of a photograph depends on two things: the intended meaning of the photo by the photographer in conjunction with the interpretation of the viewer.Unfortunately, the combination of these two rarely represent the truth.




One of the original examples of a photo found to be manipulated was that of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s. A photograph that appears to be a portrait of the American President, is actually a composite of Lincoln's head and the Southern politician's John Calhoun's body (as pictured above). What appears to be a striking portrait of the President, is not actually him at all. The reality is that an image presented to the public as a photograph of their President, is not actually a picture of the iconic president. The misrepresentation of Abraham Lincoln may have gone unnoticed if it weren't for citizens that took the pursuit of truth into their own hands.

Another early example of photo manipulation in the media is a photograph of Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, in which he routinely air-brushed his enemies out of photos. In the photograph shown below, a commissioner was removed from the original photograph after he fell out of favour with Stalin. At the time, it was found to be common for such leaders as Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Tse-tung to remove enemies or people that fell out of favour with the powerful leaders to be removed. This is an example of how images can be structured to display a truth of their own, not reality. Stalin had the photo manipulated to show a photographic construction of himself as a powerful leader by not including any people that fell out of favour with him. It is because of citizens interested in the truth, not in what is simply presented to them as truth, that the reality of these photos had been discovered.



Active citizens in the public sphere discovered the truth about the images of Abraham Lincoln and Joseph Stalin to facilitate a society that favours reality over representation. This was a large historic step forward for the public sphere.

A Photographic Exposé: An Intro

The mission statement of this blog is: to serve as an exposé of photographic truth in the mainstream media, both online and offline.

Webster's dictionary describes the word exposé as "an exposure or a revelation of something discreditable; a formal exposition of facts. This blog hopes to act as an accessible medium to expose discreditable information from mainstream media sources.

Citizen media is content that is produced by private citizens who are otherwise not professional journalists. Citizen journalism, because of its nature of being published by everyday citizens, is located in the public sphere. The public sphere, as defined by theorist Jurgen Habermas is a "domain of our social life in which such a thing as public opinion can be formed. Access to the public sphere is open in principle to all citizens." Habermas is a firm believer that the ideal citizen is an informed one, however he felt that the public sphere was in jeopardy, in part, because mass media was easily corruptible media that could subvert the principles of an informed public sphere.

However, with the increasing popularity of blogging, there is an increasingly large free flow of information and opinions that have surfaced through online citizen media in the public sphere. With this phenomenon has surfaced the presence of the watchdog blog which serves as a critically important role to hold media accountable within the public sphere. This form of investigative journalism has been particularly beneficial in exposing truth and betrayal that is present in mainstream media.

Through this blog, I will be posting various examples and writing commentary about photographic truth and lies that have been exposed about mainstream media through watchdog blogs.

See the following video as a brief explanation from the Associated Press about how a watchdog blog/ "accountability journalism" functions as a free and independent press to hold leaders accountable.