ORIGINAL

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Copyright 1970

Valley Daily News

ALTERED

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1995

Life Magazine

Life Magazine responds:

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The photo we published was supplied to us by our photo library—the Time-Life Picture Collection, the second largest such repository of catalogued images. Amazingly, the fence post had been airbrushed out by someone, now anonymous, in a darkroom sometime in the early 1970s. The picture had run numerous times—without the fencepost, and without anyone taking notice—in Time (Nov. 6, 1972, p. 23), People (May 2, 1977, p. 37), Time (Jan. 7, 1980, p. 45), People (April 30, 1990, p. 117), to name just a few publications.

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EVALUATING WEB CONTENT

• Visual credibility can be assessed in much the same way as site credibility. First, consider the source—is it nationalgeographic.org or theonion.com? Like content, if a visual seems too outlandish to be true it just may be. You may be looking at a picture of a pregnant man, but is there any mention of this in Science Today to back the story up?

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• Check the image properties. Is it hosted on a different web page? Has it been given any <alt> or <title> attributes? Do all of these elements add up and make sense with the visual which you are viewing? Often, there will be something rather strange in this information, and if you are already doubting the visual, it might be best to find something else.

• Look for a copyright symbol on the picture. If there is not a copyright symbol on the picture, look for an author’s name. This way you will have a way of contacting them about the validity.

• look for where the photo was published—if it was a credible magazine or journal will provide some background information into the history of the photograph

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• look at the context in which the image is placed, including surrounding images, text associated with the image, etc. For example, if the tone of the caption that goes along with an image is satirical or sarcastic, the image might be being used as commentary rather than photographic “truth”

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• look for traces of image editing—this will be easier on sloppy Photoshop jobs. For example, pay close attention to shadows, color shading, shape, edges, and layering and depth

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• search for multiple copies of the photo—this allows for multiple viewpoints of the event or object that the picture contains

Newsweek’s policy on altering tones but not subject matter was printed in the December 8, 1997 edition of Newsweek as a “clarification” after the controversy over the magazine's digital straightening of the teeth of Bobbi McCaughey.

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Newsweek’s full statement read as follows: “In an attempt to lighten shadows on last week’s cover photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Kenny McCaughey, our photo technicians altered the appearance of Bobbi McCaughey’s teeth. While we often correct color values and contrast levels in pictures we use, it is not Newsweek’s policy to change or misrepresent the subject matter in any way. We regret the error.”

“The harshness of the mug shot—the merciless bright light, the stubble on Simpson's face, the cold specificity of the picture—had been subtly smoothed and shaped into an icon of tragedy” (Managing Editor,Time).

[Michelle Pfeiffer in Esquire, 1990]

Instructions for professional touch-up of photo

(bill totaled $1500):

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“Clean up complexion, soften eye lines, soften smile line, add colour to lips, trim chin. . . soften line under ear lobe. . . add hair to top of head.”

Lisa Marie Presley

Jane Magazine cover, September 2003

Total for cover touch-ups and prep: $6500

left arm

and pants

(photo 3)

right arm

(photo 1)

face

(photo 2)

torso and shirt

(digitally created)

hair

(digitally created)

“It's 100% her.”

(Redbook editor Ellen Kunes)

left arm

and pants

(photo 3)

right arm

(photo 1)

face

(photo 2)

torso and shirt

(digitally created)

hair

(digitally created)

“It's 100% her.”

(Redbook editor Ellen Kunes)

+

=

2002

1999

July 2003

“She started out a big kitty and she just seemed to keep growing. She always meowed for more food and would climb up on the counter to eat food which I forgot to cover. Chicken is her favorite. Once I left a cooked chicken on the table that I was going to use for a boat picnic, an hour later the chicken was gone” (email text; readership: hundreds of thousands).

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“My daughter wanted to send an electronic photo of her cat to her friend. I got a little carried away. When we sent it to her friend, we never dreamed anyone would believe the photo was real” (Cordell Hauglie, Ottawa Citizen, readership: thousands).

background

sky

glacier 1

glacier 2

The spoof version appears to have originated on IMAO.us, a political humor blog, where it was posted on March 4, 2008 under the header, “There Is an International Crisis at 3 A.M.; President Obama Answers the Call.” Both the title and the Photoshopped clock on the wall refer to a scenario posed in a TV campaign ad released by Obama’s rival, Hillary Clinton, in late February:

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It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing. Something's happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military—someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world. It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?

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It could also be regarded as an homage (or a rip-off) of a similar visual joke targeting George W. Bush that circulated in 2005:

“It is important that we show the diversity in the University of Idaho,” graphic artist David Embleton told Buchanan.

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But if the campus were so diverse, wouldn’t the archives have real, unadulterated photographs to reflect the teeming racial variety on campus?

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According to the Princeton Review, at least 81% of the student body at UI is white, while 1% is black and 2% is Asian.

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“Doctored Diversity”

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=9944

• Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother (1936)

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• nicknamed the “depression madonna”

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• emblem of hardship; a “timeless and universal symbol of suffering”

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• father deliberately removed from the shot

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• children told to tuck their heads behind mother because they were laughing

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• mother’s arm posed

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• Forrest Gump (1994)

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• created its own reality and history

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• controversy = creation of events through splicing of historical footage with contemporary footage

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• our culture has a legacy of photographic truth—we want to believe that the camera shows us

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• our culture is a visual culture → the majority of our news, entertainment, and political messages are transmitted visually (and textually)

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• our culture has a text-based, text-as-primary literacy background, and is still wrestling with new visual technologies and modes of meaning-making

• new technologies allow us to represent ourselves—and, more importantly—to represent others in ways that are potentially problematic

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• new technologies require us to ask new questions and face new concerns about how we see and how we represent the world

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• we currently live in a culture of simulation—where images are created

CONCERNS & ISSUES

• pictures tell us who counts in society; images teach us what to think and how to feel, who to associate with

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• seeing is no longer believing; technology has created seamless manipulation and unnatural standards

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• fiction and reality blur together: manipulated and “original” images appear together

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