Financial Times Editorial Comment:The camera lies
Financial Times Editorial Comment:The camera lies
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: August 24 2007 19:53 | Last updated: August 24 2007 19:53
The aphorism “the camera never lies” was never true. Yet photography’s mendacious capabilities have been amplified by the capabilities of image editing software such as Photoshop.
This month, the French magazine Paris Match published photographs of a bare-chested President Nicolas Sarkozy that appeared to have been “improved”. Courtesy of some unknown digital artist, Mr Sarkozy lost his love handles (les poignées d’amour, if you were wondering), thus appearing just that tiny bit more like his muscular counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and a little less like the Michelin Man.
Come to think of it, who can now be so confident that the Russian president’s impressive pectorals – recently on display on a fishing expedition – belong to him and not to Arnold Schwarzenegger? Russian television did, after all, seem to embellish the footage of the submarine voyage under the North Pole with footage from Titanic.
Mr Sarkozy’s mysterious weight loss is controversial less for what it was than for what it exemplified: a cosy relationship with Arnaud Lagardère, the owner of Paris Match.
Yet such alterations, large and small, have been part of photography for decades. Some are subtle but insidious, such as the darkening of O.J. Simpson’s skin in a police mug shot used for the cover of Time magazine. Others have been outright malicious – such as a convincing fake showing John Kerry, then a US presidential hopeful, and Jane Fonda sharing the platform at an antiwar rally in the 1970s. Readers are now more sceptical and forensic tools are being developed to detect fakes.
But there is a broader issue here. Newspapers and magazines will always filter the way their readers perceive reality. If it is not digital manipulation, it is the choice of photograph, the use of quotations, even the decision to report or to remain silent. Readers place their trust in the press. Some will violate that trust and others will do their best to respect it. That was true long before Photoshop.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: August 24 2007 19:53 | Last updated: August 24 2007 19:53
The aphorism “the camera never lies” was never true. Yet photography’s mendacious capabilities have been amplified by the capabilities of image editing software such as Photoshop.
This month, the French magazine Paris Match published photographs of a bare-chested President Nicolas Sarkozy that appeared to have been “improved”. Courtesy of some unknown digital artist, Mr Sarkozy lost his love handles (les poignées d’amour, if you were wondering), thus appearing just that tiny bit more like his muscular counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and a little less like the Michelin Man.
Come to think of it, who can now be so confident that the Russian president’s impressive pectorals – recently on display on a fishing expedition – belong to him and not to Arnold Schwarzenegger? Russian television did, after all, seem to embellish the footage of the submarine voyage under the North Pole with footage from Titanic.
Mr Sarkozy’s mysterious weight loss is controversial less for what it was than for what it exemplified: a cosy relationship with Arnaud Lagardère, the owner of Paris Match.
Yet such alterations, large and small, have been part of photography for decades. Some are subtle but insidious, such as the darkening of O.J. Simpson’s skin in a police mug shot used for the cover of Time magazine. Others have been outright malicious – such as a convincing fake showing John Kerry, then a US presidential hopeful, and Jane Fonda sharing the platform at an antiwar rally in the 1970s. Readers are now more sceptical and forensic tools are being developed to detect fakes.
But there is a broader issue here. Newspapers and magazines will always filter the way their readers perceive reality. If it is not digital manipulation, it is the choice of photograph, the use of quotations, even the decision to report or to remain silent. Readers place their trust in the press. Some will violate that trust and others will do their best to respect it. That was true long before Photoshop.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 6:45 AM
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