Читать книгу Visual Communication - Janis Teruggi Page - Страница 46

Photo manipulation is a contentious area in journalism, advertising, and other forms of strategic communication. From almost the beginning of photography, it became possible to manipulate, edit, alter, and combine images, thus changing their meanings in subtle or blatant ways. Celebrated US Civil War photographer, Mathew Brady, made a portrait of General William Tecumseh Sherman's top officers – but later added a missing officer who Brady evidently thought should be part of the record (Strauss, 2011). More recently, Time magazine edited and darkened a cover photo of African American murder suspect O.J. Simpson in a move that some said had the effect of making him look more menacing (Black and Roberts, 2011).

News organizations and professional photojournalism organizations have specific guidelines regarding manipulation. The Associated Press (AP) policy begins, “AP visuals must always tell the truth. We do not alter or digitally manipulate the content of a photograph in any way” (AP n.d.). However, the policy goes on to say minor adjustments are acceptable including cropping, dodging, and burning, conversion into grayscale and normal toning and color adjustments which should be “limited to those minimally necessary for clear and accurate reproduction” (AP n.d., para. 2).

The New York Times also has policies against photo manipulation, however, it acknowledged that fashion photography in its T Magazine has different rules (Sullivan, 2013). The magazine's fashion editors argued that fashion is a different genre of photography and that the publication's readers recognize that “fashion is fantasy.” Their public editor (an ombudsperson) suggested that fashion spreads should be subject to the same rules as any other part of the publication or at the very least should have a sort of warning label about the different standards for fashion (Sullivan, 2013). Of course, these policies do not govern the photo manipulation that goes on in fashion advertising carried on their pages. Fashion brands and advertisements frequently manipulate photos to make models appear thinner and to eliminate “flaws” they may have. Some critics argue that such alterations give people unrealistic ideas about body images they may aspire to and may even lead to eating disorders (Bissell, 2006; Reaves et al., 2004).

In the past, with film‐based, analog photography, it was usually possible to compare film negatives with altered pictures and detect a fake. Today, however, people with even minimal skills can create mashups, edit their own photos, remove or add individuals, and so on. Individuals can easily share images on social networks like Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram.