Makers or Takers

[Vaughn]

"...People traditionally tended to believe photos. ...

The first recorded fake photograph was made in 1840, according to this source:

The First Faked Photograph (1840)

The photograph was invented in the early 19th century, but who invented it? Histories of photography point to several different independent inventors, most of them French:

www.openculture.com

Bayard, still very much alive, made Self Portrait as a Drowned Man as a kind of artistic stunt, the latest in a series of self-portraits testing his photographic process.

It may or may not be first, but the Victorian Era was filled with fake photographs...fairies and ghosts especially. In the 50s the Soviets proved adapt to disappearing people from photographs (while the at the same time they disappeared from reality, or to Siberia...same thing). And of course the 60s' onslaught of advertising photos (with ice cubes spelling SEX in the drink glass), and the UFO and Big Foot images after that which all helps us to maintain our disbelief in the printed image -- and even more so now with the virtual image. It is nothing new.

So I think people in general have tended to not believe photos to be reality, nor what they see on TV or in the movies is necessarily real and factual. There are just too many exceptions!

I use a single transfer carbon printing method. This means all my carbons prints are backwards...mirror images of reality. Which may have seemed strange at first to some at first, but portraits printed this way are generally appreciated -- the subject looks like they do in the mirror, and now in selfies (w/o the distortion). And generally no one knows what the scene really looks like so it does not matter. I avoid photos of Half Dome, usually.

 

[Craig]

NickUt’s famous photo was cropped for greater photographic and emotional impact.

If I recall there is quite a bit of doubt that he was actually the photographer. I though it was another press photographer who took that image and it was incorrectly credited to Nick Ut?

 

[Craig]

"A photo is worth a thousand words."

Which means that it is much easier to show someone something than to tell them.

Think of an instruction manual for how to assemble something that has no photos and only text, vs a series of photos showing how the parts fit together. Which do you think will be shorter and easier for most people to follow?

 

[gbroadbridge]

Which means that it is much easier to show someone something than to tell them.

Think of an instruction manual for how to assemble something that has no photos and only text, vs a series of photos showing how the parts fit together. Which do you think will be shorter and easier for most people to follow?

Most service manuals are assembly diagrams accompanied by detailed text instructions.

You need both.

 

[gbroadbridge]

I though it was another press photographer who took that image and it was incorrectly credited to Nick Ut?

No.

 

[Craig]

No.

Found it: https://www.worldpressphoto.org/news/2025/authorship-attribution-suspended-for-the-terror-of-war

 

[snusmumriken]

If I recall there is quite a bit of doubt that he was actually the photographer. I though it was another press photographer who took that image and it was incorrectly credited to Nick Ut?

We discussed that at length here. Let’s not distract the current thread.

 

[cliveh]