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.