Photoshop Alters Memories

[haris]

Joe, what you said is true. But it is not issue. No one object manipulation in art, fashion, experimental, advertizing (now, that is questionable, but still let say aceptable) and like forms of photography. Problem is when manipulation is made in let say documentary photography, either in media, or "personal". I have seen in one magazine (I think it was PP) several years ago, when digital just started to entering masses, in example of article how to make photo from two different photographs, image of nude girl in harem of mosque (it seems islamic radicals don't read that magazine or there will be troubles). Nude girl in mosque or mosque's harem is something which is hardly to ever happen in reality. So, imagine someone returning from touristic trip in Arabic countries, and showing photograph to friends to show image like that. And to claim (s)he made that photograph. And things like that are spreading over "real documentary" photographs like magazine and/or newspapers photographs. That is when problems starts.

 

[arigram]

If one wants to know how truthful my photographs are they can just take a look at the negatives.
Sure, there is always the subtlety of lighting and composition, but that is comparing the syntax and punctuation of a phrase to completely censoring and replacing words.
I will disagree with the first assessment you make Art, in regards to professionals being afraid of losing their jobs and secrets to amateurs. I know enough of bad professional photographers and good amateur ones not to confuse myself about the skills and qualities of each "title". A mediocre professional that makes money of his work is just a professional like any other. A skilled and creative amateur could be an artist, one that doesn't do it for the money (only) but for the creation itself.
As regards to the second, yes, we humans always wanted to alter our memories and we do that at each opportunity. We try to keep good memories from past events and hide or alter the bad ones. I remember how often I was told that my time in the army would be something to fondly remember (because supposedly life was easy compared to the civilian one), yet I still have nightmares once in a while about being back there (and I was not even in a warzone). We try to let our heart breaks fade in the past and exaggerate and give importance to our good love affairs. We suppress and suppress and suppress as hard as we can our bad memories. Of course it is desirable. Of course it seems like a good idea at the time. But such decisions are ones that will come to bite us later. Sure, we might eradicate a bad event from our past in our photos. And soon from our consciousness. But the feelings will remain and the subconscious will revolt some day. And we grow old, basing our all existence in lies and falsehoods. We turn back at our past life and remember only what was convenient at the time. And some day, someone from the past, whom we deleted from photographs and memories might come back. A pain in our heart we cannot place. Perfect photographs from perfect memories of perfect events of a perfect life. Is that what humans have turned to? Living a lie, altering our memories to fit a certain dream, a certain ideal, a certain fear. Fear, cowardice, insecurity, irresponsibility, immaturity and so on.
Maybe we aren't yet at the level of Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, but soon we will be hiring Memory Coaches to alter our past and the evidence of it for our convenience.
Its one thing to have rabid nationalists and religious fanatics created out of lies and propaganda and another to have all human experience being a lie.
When Memory, when Life gets Photoshopped.

 

[RobC]

here's a nice photo:

http://www.geh.org/taschen/htmlsrc6/m198117910003_ful.html

and here's a little article:

http://www.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Mitchell/MitchellHow.html


Methinks the fault lies in preconceptions of what a photograph should be.

 

[Ralph Javins]

Good morning;

It is apparent that there is more in this forum than the mere title implies.

 

[removed account4]

If one wants to know how truthful my photographs are they can just take a look at the negatives.
Sure, there is always the subtlety of lighting and composition, but that is comparing the syntax and punctuation of a phrase to completely censoring and replacing words.
I will disagree with the first assessment you make Art, in regards to professionals being afraid of losing their jobs and secrets to amateurs. I know enough of bad professional photographers and good amateur ones not to confuse myself about the skills and qualities of each "title". A mediocre professional that makes money of his work is just a professional like any other. A skilled and creative amateur could be an artist, one that doesn't do it for the money (only) but for the creation itself.
As regards to the second, yes, we humans always wanted to alter our memories and we do that at each opportunity. We try to keep good memories from past events and hide or alter the bad ones. I remember how often I was told that my time in the army would be something to fondly remember (because supposedly life was easy compared to the civilian one), yet I still have nightmares once in a while about being back there (and I was not even in a warzone). We try to let our heart breaks fade in the past and exaggerate and give importance to our good love affairs. We suppress and suppress and suppress as hard as we can our bad memories. Of course it is desirable. Of course it seems like a good idea at the time. But such decisions are ones that will come to bite us later. Sure, we might eradicate a bad event from our past in our photos. And soon from our consciousness. But the feelings will remain and the subconscious will revolt some day. And we grow old, basing our all existence in lies and falsehoods. We turn back at our past life and remember only what was convenient at the time. And some day, someone from the past, whom we deleted from photographs and memories might come back. A pain in our heart we cannot place. Perfect photographs from perfect memories of perfect events of a perfect life. Is that what humans have turned to? Living a lie, altering our memories to fit a certain dream, a certain ideal, a certain fear. Fear, cowardice, insecurity, irresponsibility, immaturity and so on.
Maybe we aren't yet at the level of Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, but soon we will be hiring Memory Coaches to alter our past and the evidence of it for our convenience.
Its one thing to have rabid nationalists and religious fanatics created out of lies and propaganda and another to have all human experience being a lie.
When Memory, when Life gets Photoshopped.

wow.

as i read what you wrote i couldn't help think of the
talking heads song (linked to).
it is about waking up from a dream ( one's life ) and realizing that none of it is true, everything that
you thought was true was just an empty lie.
video
lyrics

 

[arigram]

Nice clip John.

Ok, I have more to say on the subject. My head is a bit off but I'll try to stay inline.
I will possibly forget something so I'll add it tomorrow.
Consider these things:

1) Photo/Video Journalism dies. And all visual evidence of an event. Doctoring journalistic photos isn't news, but what is, the general acceptance of what is ok, is changing. Now, one might twist the truth a bit, not aiming for propaganda necessarily but for "aesthetic" reasons, like in the Beirut bombing, Iranian missiles and the photo Haris touched on. Then, slowly, manipulated aesthetics become acceptable by the public, ("Who cares how many planes flew over?" or "So he made the picture more dramatic, but didn't change the event") and then news editors stop firing the Photoshoppers and just going with it. Tabloid aesthetics become the norm. Photos are nothing more than entertaining illustrations. No visual evidence of a crime can be trust anymore.
In my photographic collection about the Battle of Crete in WWII, there are also hand drawn illustrations in known magazines of scenes that their journalists weren't able to cover. One though, would know that these BW sketches were not far from pure fiction. But with a photograph...
2) People start dis/appearing from family albums. Who are you? Your picture isn't here! The daughter gets a pony she never had really. Mom was so perfect looking in her early years and now looks like a hag. The vacations that never were. Yes, Nick did attend his father's funeral, he's on the photo, see? Once I used to be a fireman. Or was I? Did Mary really like me like she shows in this picture or not? Were these people my friends really? Did I do that? Was I like this?
3) Plastic surgery. A product of the star system. Of photography and cinema. You do plastic surgery on the photograph, you do a plastic surgery to keep that appearance in real life. Clearly a sign of the vain, the ones afraid of old age and death, of failure, of not being acceptable. A sign of the rich and eccentric. Yet, has been more and more common. Fix that nose, that ass, those boobs, that scar, those wrinkles. When most common snapshots become manipulated, isn't real manipulation going to be even more common.
4) History dies. A picture is worth a thousand words. You can dress and twist and spin a text as much as you like, but a photograph, a video was taken for real and wasn't touched, only in rare occasions. Connected with point 1) but even more so, as our history includes far more senses now. Its not just the text that is propaganda now. But all the rest as well. And its ok, because everyone's used to it.
5) Your photographs are the memories of those events. Moved from your head to an external storage device. The moment you have photographed remains with you the way its on print/screen. You're in the photograph when you take it and thus you live the moment through that photograph. Even if it wasn't taken by you, that visual evidence in front of you colors and shapes your real memory. So, in the end, those photographed moments are what they appear to be not what your head tells you, if it was even stored there.
6) A snapshot isn't a capture of a moment in time, of a real past event, of a memory, of a person. It is a virtual reality fantasy world avatar, like in World of Warcraft. A fake person, a fake event, the way you would have liked it to be just to tickle your fantasy and desires. It becomes entertainment. No more real than that big green Orc with the medieval armor and sword on the computer screen. Like in Second Life, a second you. The You, you want, not who you really are or was.
7) Communication becomes fiction completely.