22678161
Film R1B
5/10/13
Film Blog
Photography is a ubiquitous
component of society. Beginning in the
early 19th century, advances in technology and photography have
continually made it more accessible to all people around the globe. In addition to photography’s omnipresence in
society, it has a very strong authority.
Photography is seen as an absolute truth; it is seen as the unerring
recording device of the physical world.
In Photography: A Critical
Introduction, photography is described as having an “air of being simple,
real” and a documentation of the world (Photography:
A Critical Introduction 78). In Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes argues
that a “horror” of photography is that people have a “tendency to accept
photographs as reflections of the real” (Photography:
A Critical Introduction 245). This
is dangerous because when a photograph is altered or doctored, it can lead to a
person believing something that is not true.
This photo fakery, or trick photography, has played a large part in the
deceptions and myths of the late 20th century. In some cases, these deceptions are very
political, such as photos altered during the Cold War to shift public opinion
in a certain way. In Photo Fakery, Dino Brugioni, founder of
the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center, explains how photos,
which were seen as the most “powerful and factual way of viewing the world” at
the time were altered “to influence opinion on current or sensitive issues” (Photo Fakery 3, 141). In other cases, trick photos make people
believe in myths like UFO’s visiting Earth or the existence of a mysterious
creature named Sasquatch and create a new kind of folklore shrouded in
mystery. In recent times, the
authenticity of photographs in documentaries and photojournalism has come into
question (The Photography Reader 252). Documentary creators often alter the photos
that they use in order to create an effect that uses the audiences’ emotions to
get them to think as the documentary intends.
The significance of photography has a lot do with its acceptance as a
very important means of communication.
This importance derives from the fact that photography is the most
credible of all mediums of communication.
If this credibility is ruined, than the importance of photography in
most aspects of society will also fall and the reign of photography in the past
200 years will end.
This first photo is an example of
some of the photographic tricks that are possible today. Although photo fakery and trickery is not a
new development, with new technology it has become a very accessible and easy
thing to do. It is no longer a skill
exclusive to photography experts in the media and the government or talented
artists; it is now a hobby for many people who enjoy taking and editing
photos. Looking at this photo, it is
very obvious that it was captured and edited in a way that can produce this
tube-like time-lapse effect. The man in
the image seems to be approaching us in a spiral fashion, producing a cool and
mesmerizing effect. These photos are
commonly used a means of artistic expression for the common populace because
now anyone with an interest and Internet can figure out how to doctor images in
any way they please. Many edited photos
in recent years are changed to produce a visually pleasing or physically
impossible images and are not changed to produce a more emotional or political effect,
as has been the case with most doctored images in the past.
During the Vietnam War, public opinion
in the United States was strongly against the conflict. Massive rallies and movements against the war
swept the country and were backed by thousands of people. The North Vietnamese knew this and wanted to
sway public opinion in the United States more against the war so that the
American government would back out of the conflict. They did this by taking the photo of General
William Westmoreland in Newsweek shown above and putting it in front of an
image of a massacre to make the killing of innocent civilians that was occurring
in the war at the time look deliberate. If
you look at the background of the altered photo, you can see a gruesome scene
where the ground is littered with dead and bloody bodies. These edited photos sparked outrage in the
United States because people thought that the military was killing innocent
people on purpose. This trick
photography is just one example of how the Soviet press would manipulate photos
and public opinion to help them politically and militarily. The power of the Soviet press to influence
the course of events with false photography was enormous, as can be seen by the
amount of public outrage the photo above created in the United States and lead
to the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam.
Most primitive societies had at one
time a common legend that describes a large ape-like man that roams around in
the wilderness at night. In the Pacific
Northwest of the United States, this legend became hugely popular after a man in
1951 photographed a large footprint that looked like one that would come from
Bigfoot, according to the descriptions of the beast in legends. After the image spread throughout the United
States, interest in Sasquatch gained in popularity and curiosity. People began to believe the myth behind the
mysterious creature and eventually people captured pictures, like the one
above, of the creature itself. These
pictures of Sasquatch are all blurry or out of focus. Experts say that the footprint pictures and most
of the “sightings” are simply misidentified animals, while others, because they
are so blurry, are just too hard to identify.
Nothing can be told for sure because of the blurry nature of these
photographs. With the lack of certainty
behind the subject, many people chose to believe in the existence of a creature
called Bigfoot. As a result, many
stories, movies, and TV shows have included Bigfoot as a character. Bigfoot, after this mysterious trick
photography, has become such an important part of American folklore that he is a
ubiquitously known and included in other parts of the country’s pop culture, as
can be seen in the next picture.
Bigfoot is so well-known that he is
included in many TV shows, books, stories, and even commercials. Here Jack Link’s, a company that produces and
sells beef jerky, uses Sasquatch in their commercials to promote their
product. In the commercial campers are
eating Jack Link’s beef jerky in the forest and as a result gather the courage
to “mess with Sasquatch”, or do something amusing to him to bother him and get
him angry. Sasquatch ends up getting
angry and hurting one of the campers in a humorous way. Sasquatch is portrayed as a large brutish
creature with basic intelligence and a short temper. This portrayal of Sasquatch is very
consistent with other portrayals of Sasquatch.
This beast-like portrayal is probably attributed to the fact that there
is a shroud of mystery surrounding Sasquatch, and when humans are unsure about
something they tend to fear it and portray it as evil or bad. Because of the exposure Sasquatch got from
those early blurry and mysterious photographs, the myth grew into an important
idol of pop-culture in America. It is
very apparent how photographs can perpetuate hoaxes because of its supreme
credibility and trust as a means of communication. Had it not been for this, Bigfoot would still
be a little-known figure in the Pacific Northwest.
Another myth that was strengthened
by trick photography was the UFO scares in the post World War II era. Many people have reported seeing unidentified
flying objects in the past but it was not until photography became readily
available for the public and became easy to do without long exposure times that
these accounts could be confirmed or believed.
Many photos displayed disc-shaped floating objects like those in the
photo above and the possibility of alien visitors became a real scare and
interest around the world. It became such
a fear in the country that the government began collecting photos and storing
them in a file called Project Blue Book (Photo
Fakery 164). This file lasted 7
years until the scientists working for the Air Force realized after extensive
analysis that almost every UFO in every photo can be attributed to a normal
blemish that occurs to photographs because of moisture, film defects, soot,
overlapping exposures, etc. Many people
even threw up a plate an photographed it flying through the air and sent it to
the Air Force as a UFO submission. This
type of false photography especially threw off the department because it cannot
be attributed to any of the previous physical phenomenon that occurs normally
to cameras. The department also cannot
know what the intent of the photographer was and therefore cannot simply
attribute these photos to pranks people play on the department. Many of the photos went unexplained but they
were all eventually dismissed as either hoaxes or natural occurrences. These photos, however, had a large impact on
the United States. Like the Sasquatch
photos, UFO photos caused aliens and alien spaceships to enter the pages of
American folklore. Many movies were made
based on these alien visits and all these aliens came to Earth on ships that
look like the UFO’s captured in the photos that were sent to the Air Force. TV shows, books, comic books, video games,
and many other mediums of communication and entertainment soon incorporated the
iconic floating discs and the myths behind them into their storylines. UFO’s had indeed invaded the United States’
pop culture because of trick photography.
Not only were people scared or fascinated by the potential of an alien
visit, but the government was researching and preparing for this potential
visit. Because photographs are the
ultimate truth, the UFO landing pictures were taken so seriously that the
government was allocating some of its money to solving this mystery and being
ready for it in case it is true. The
fact that even the government was fooled by false photography shows how
powerful photography is. False
photography has also shown that it can heavily influence the course of things
as important and significant as politics, by determining where government money
is spent and allocated.
Many trick photographs create an
effect that makes it appear that a ghost has appeared in the photo. Beginning as early as the 1860’s,
photographers learned that using double exposures when taking pictures could
result in a shadowy negative of the first photo. This negative resembles a spirit or ghost,
and many people believed that photographs had the ability to capture a person’s
soul or capture the spirit realm. This
discovery was at first accidental; if a photographer forgot to move their film
forward after capturing a photo they would get this spirit-like effect. But, this trick photography fooled people
into thinking ghosts and spirits were real, and some photographers used this extensively
in the 19th century for many different reasons. The first reason was, of course, money. The belief that the imposed picture was
actually the spirit of someone caused people to want pictures of themselves
with the spirits of their dead loved ones.
Photographers would pretend to be able to channel spirits and would
impose a picture of that loved one on the image of their client. Many people fell for this trick and a whole
market for those who can communicate with the spirit world opened up, employing
a lot of photographers and making photography a more lucrative business. The belief in spirits escalated to such a
level that around the turn of the 20th century, people began to
gather together and attempt to call the spirit of a recently deceased
person. Many people attended these
gatherings, or séances. Among these
people was Abraham Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, who tried to communicate
with her husband at these gatherings after he had been assassinated. These spirits were also feared greatly. Many people used double exposures to put
spirits into photographs of certain places that they wanted to keep safe,
whether it is to keep children safe or to keep their belongings safe from
thieves. The fear of ghosts escalated
and continued on well into the 20th and 21st
centuries. Since the late 19th
century, the idea that ghosts can be seen through photography has persisted in
American folklore and has been used as a premise for a few movies, such as Insidious, which was released in
2010. The history of ghosts in American
legends shows how trick photography can have a lasting impact on people and the
pop culture of the country. More than
100 years later, the idea that ghosts can be seen through photography is still
an idea that is relevant and well known that it is used for movies and other
entertainment mediums as an interesting story line. This, in addition to the myths about
Sasquatch and UFO’s, shows how fake photography can have a huge impact on not
only the pop culture but the actual beliefs and superstitions of the people
that see the photograph.
Through careful examination of all
these photographs and the types of trick photography they represent, it is easy
to see how big of an impact false photographs can have on the world. With effects ranging from changing politics
and how a government spends its money to scaring people into buying your
photographs and help because they believe in spirits, photo fakery has shown
how easily people believe in a photograph and how much the person altering the
photo can benefit. Not only can there be
financial benefit, but the government can benefit by shifting public opinion in
their favor. It is easy to underestimate
the power of fake photography because it is not apparent when a photograph is a
fake. According to Brad Dorn, president
of Printbox, Inc., his computers have the potential to create images that can
“defy the best of experts” (Photo Fakery 164). With new technology making photo fakery
easier and more believable, it seems like those altering photos stand to
benefit more without fearing getting caught.
The only thing people can do is to be weary when looking at
photographs. The undeniable credibility
of photographs that is still lingering in society today after the late 20th
century needs to end. Photographs today
are too easily altered and can be very realistic with new technology. If everyone is aware of how prevalent false
photography is, than the fake photographs will stop tricking people and those people
who alter photographs will not stand to benefit illegitimately any longer.
No comments:
Post a Comment