Comment by Dabido (Teflon)

January 29, 2007 @ 6:38 pm

The book I’m reading at the moment [Practices of Looking: An Introduction To Visual Culture] comments on this phenomenon as well. It mentions the OJ Simpson picture in Chapter one as well as numerous other altered images. [Like how a lot of the Russian images removed old leaders from the photographs, as in the Trotsky image you've shown].

One from my book talks a little about how National Geographic got into a lot of trouble for This SQUEEZING of Pyramids closer together which I thought was rather amazing as I’d never have even thought about how close the Pyramids are together. [Which is probably the entire point of fake photographs. If someone doesn't know the Pyramids are too far apart to get that shot, then they'd never question it].

Of course, there are visual artists out there who make art forms from the technique. [But of course, they don't try to pass the images off as REAL].

Time Magazine of course tried to pass off the OJ Simpson photo alteration as being ‘aesthetic reasons’. Though, an interesting thing mentioned in my book was that the mug shot (even the unaltered one in Newsweek) created a feeling in people that he was guilty. [Where one court found him innocent and another found him guilty ... only in America!]

Comment by ShaolinTiger

January 30, 2007 @ 2:44 pm

Dabido (Teflon): Ah interesting, you are reading about the same subject. Seems like it happens all to frequently. The OJ Simpson photo was quite a big thing, but then so was the case, was like a freak show.

Comment by Dabido (Teflon)

January 30, 2007 @ 9:16 pm

Yeah the OJ thing did seem to get turned into a circus.

And I often find I’m reading about things that come up often with others … possibly might be because I read a lot, might also be because probablity would have it all fit under some sort of wave theory on book subjects lol
In this case, it’s probably because I’m studying Visual Culture as part of my Arts Degree this semester and Photography is often mentioned … therefore the chances of a subject overlapping is quite high. [Though the course has nothing to do with photgraphic techniques etc ... just on the subject of photography as it fits into the genre of visual culture ... such as altering images].

I blogged about the Visual Culture book the other day.

Comment by ShaolinTiger

February 4, 2007 @ 12:35 am

Dabido: Very interesting stuff, might have a look into this visual culture business.