INTRODUCTION

For a century and a half, chemical phorography has had a privileged status as a
"truthful" means of representation. The notion that the camera offers a unique
representation of nature itself, an accurare, objective copy of the real world, has
been a popular one. Phocography had, and to sorne extent still has, a remarkable
weight and credibility that other forms of media, such as illustration or rexc,
never had.
However, the advenc of digital imaging L is calling into question chis
unique position. Indeed, over the last decade, the new technology has made the
photographie image become remarkably malleable. Today, we are increasingly
confronted with manipulared images that are no longer exact renderings of
events that transpired before the lens and co synthetic images whose phorographlike
realism are nothing more than sophisticated trompe-l'oeil. Therefore, as a
result of photography's current mutation from analog to digital, a number of
discussions and controversies are arising.
On the one hand, many arrists welcome the new technology for its
limitless creative possibilities. ~fike Laye, for instance, remarks:
"Photographers wiU be freed from [the} perpetuaI constraint, that of having,
by definition, to record the reality of things, that which is reaUy occurring...
Freed at last from being mere recorders of realiry, [ ...} creativity will be given
free rein" (in Robins, 1991: 56). On the other hand, sorne theorists are more
prone tO alarmist statements, claiming the death of photography and the
beginning of a new "post-photographic"2 era (Mitchell, 1992; Ritchin 1990).
The issue of the status of the photographic image in the digital age is critical tO
address since photography has traditionally played a crucial role in the creation
of collective memory and the formation of belief. We live in an extremely
t The cechnology is also eefeeeed co as elecrronic, computer, digital imaging or retouching;
computee enhancement, image processing, and electronic color imaging a.k.a. ECI.
2 The teem "pose-photOgraphic eea" is said ra have been given irs currency wirh the ride of
William Mirchell"s book The Reconfigured Eye: Visruz! Truth in the Post-photographie Era,
although rhe term was used earlier in Photovideo: Photography in the Age of the Computer (Ziff,
1991: ISO).

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visual world - especially since the late 18805 3 when the development of
printing techniques enabled the reproduction of photographs in newspapers,
books, and magazines (Keller, 1990: 195). Today, the rypical urbanite is said to
absorb about Il 000 images in the course of a given day. In the United Stares
there are reportedly 260 000 billboards, Il 520 newspapers, and Il SS6
periodicals (Postman, 1992: 69 and Friend, 1998: HREF). Fortune magazine
reported that in 1990, sevenreen billion photographs - more than 46 millions
photos a day - had been generared in America alone (Nuity, 1991: 39). And
even though, according co the same article, "only" five billion photographs had
been made in 1970, British critic John Berger was already remarking back then
that "in no other forrn of society in history has there been such a concentration
of images, sueh a density of visual messages" (Berger, 1972: 129). These
impressive numbers might suggest that since we are over-saturated with
picrures, their impact might be diluted; Graham Clarke even suggests in The
Photograph: "In a wodd dominated by visual images the phocograph has become
alrnost invisible" (Clarke, 1998: Il). Nevertheless, one could argue that we
still rely heavily upon visual "evidenee" for information about our world.
David Friend, Editor for Creative Development at Vanity Fair, and former
Director of Phocography at Lijé, says:
As a sociecy, we have become comforcable wich images, and wich che immediace and ofcen
emocional gracificacion chac piccures provide. We are now accusromed, and l would even say
condicioned, ro needing a "piccure fix" from many, many media oudecs. We are voyeurs.
Piccures scill move us, day in, day oue (Friend, 1998: HREF).
As we shaH see, even though photographs have long been tampered with and
many critics have stressed its constructed characrer, the issue of the credibility
of the photographie image has never been as eonresreà and central to the debare
of representation as it is today, in the age of computer-imaging technology.
Why has the issue of photo-manipulation beeome 50 omnipresent? Why do
propositions co affix a symbol 4 co altered phocographs arise only now and not
3 The technique 1 am referring co is che half-cone plate which enabled che reproduccion of
phocographs in che pdnc media and inauguraced che era of phocojournalism. For more
information on che half-rone place 1 direcc che reader co Naomi Rosenblum's A Worfd History of
Photography (RosenbLum, 1981: 45l), and for furcher examinacion on che effeccs' of che
incroduccion of chis technique of lichography, 1 direcc che reader co Ulrich Keller's essay
"EarLy Phocojournalism" (Keller, 1990: 193-200).
4 As we shaH see lacer, sorne have proposed co accach a distinctive symboL co aH che pubLished
phocographs chac have been digically alcered.
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ewenry or fifry years ago? What are the differences between analog and digital
that justify the daim that photography is dead? And, more imporrantly, what
are the possible implications of the technology? These are sorne of the
important questions tO address. Of course, the development of digital imaging
involves a number of other critical issues: ethical problems - in the field of
documentary photography and photojournalism most notably - legal mateers
and questions of copyright for instance. However, these subjects, if mentioned
in the course of this paper, are not intended to be fully eovered. For more
information, l direct the reader co the work of Martin Lister or Fred Ritchin
for questions regarding ethics, especially in the domain of photojournalism,
and to the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment for analysis and
discussion on the problem of copyright in the digital age.
One of the most systematie premises held regarding digital imaging is
that the new eechnology's endless possibilities for manipulation are descroying
the troth effeet of the photographie image. It is fundamental co understand whar
substanriates such an argument. The first ehapter, entitled "The Myth of
Photographic Truth," examines the origins of the unique credibility
photographie images have historieally enjoyed in our society. The analysis of
photography's discourse through the writings of the pioneers of the medium,
will show how the medium was established tO be objective, automatic, and
truthful. The work of theorists such as Rudolph Arnheim, Roland Barthes,
André Bazin, Susan Sonrag and John Tagg will constituee the theoretical
framework for this chapter.
Moreover, many crities are coneerned by the ease wieh which digital
imaging is able to manipulate photographs and, as a result, public opinion. As
Victor Burgin states: "Work with an obvious ideological slant is ofeen
condemned as 'manipulative'; that ie to say, first, that the photographer
manipulates what cornes over in the image; second, that as a result his or her
audience's beliefs about the world are manipulared" (Burgin, 1976: 75),
Nonetheless, as we shall see ln the second chaprer, an examination of the
history and theory of photograph will show that the medium has never been a
realistic representation of reality and that manipulation has always been
inherent to photography. In this section, the different manipulations performed
in the darkroom will be presented and discussed in relation to their different
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applications: portraiture, art, and political propaganda. Chapter three first
describes the present cechnological tools that permit the undetectable alteration
of photographic images. This chapter also proposes to rethink photography and
representation in the light of the recent changes brought by computer
manipulation. In order ta do so, the contemporary discourse that daims the
death of photography will be examined. The implications of the current
situation will be assessed through the writings of William J. Mitchell, Fred
Ritchin, Kevin Robins and Martha RosIer, and possible solutions will be
proposed. Finally, chapter four intends to determine how digital imaging is
used ta construct a world of simulation. The case of the representation of
women in magazines will constitute the primary basis for this analysis.
Moreover, it will examine the different alterations made on photographs of
women and will attempt ta demonstrate that the changes performed reveal our
society's values and fears. Among the auchors consulted are Roland Barthes,
Jean Baudrillard and Vivian Sobchack.
This thesis condudes that most of che alarmist discourses surrounding
the issue of digital photography can be put into relative perspectives if one
examines the history and theory of photography. In fact, most preoccupying is
che systematic use of the technology which constructs a wodd of simulation.
Using a famous analogy, one can argue that digital imaging is emphasising the
shadows on the cave.
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CHAPTER ONE
THE MYTH OF PHOTOGRAPHie TRUTH
Photographic images have histocically enjoyed, in ouc sociecies, a unique cole,
based foc the most part on theic supposed ccedibility. They have been
acknowledged to offec a tcuthful visual cepresentation of che wodd and our
societies accept(ed) as tcuth sentences such as "Phocographs don't lie," "A
pictuce is wocth a thousand wocds;' and "Seeing is believing.'·S Foc instance,
many hiscocians cake oid photogcaphs for gcanced as documenc of things that
wece or happened and unquestionably use them co investigace our pasto In the
judiciary syscem6 , the reliability of conventional photography - its power of
authencicacion - has led it co be termed, "The Silent Wicness" and COllrtrOoms
have admirced photographs as evidence without collaceral cescimony to
incciminate or prove someone's innocence (Guilshan, 1992: 368). States and
governments ucilise them to identify and dassify their citizens chrollgh visual
identification and photojournalists are believed tO bring home the troth of whac
is happening in the wodd. How did phorographs earn chis pcivileged belief that
we have in chem; that chey are accurare repceseneaeions of realiey? What are che
peculiaricies which sec phocography aparc from oeher modes of represeneacion?
What are the fOllndations on which phocography has resred ies daims as an
objective reflection of ceality?
As we shaH see lacer, the progress made in electronic imaging radically
challenges the very idea of photographie objeecivity. Thecefoce, ic is
fundamental to examine ehese questions if we are tO address fully the current
debace eliciced by the new reehnology.
5 In addition. it is inceresting tO examine sorne of the words whieh have been used co describe
photographic objeccivity or realism. as chese words reveal a sec of synonyms and metaphors
suggescing a will for truchfulness. When che daguerreotype was invenced. for instance. Oliver
Wendell Holmes referred co it as a "mirror with a memory" (in Mitchell. 1992: 80), a
wording Newhall later used as a tide for a chapter of his book The History of Photograph
(Newhall. 1982: 27). Moreover. it had been widely daimed chat che medium holds qualities of
"objectivity," "cransparency." "honesty," "purity." "immediacy;' etc. Critie Clement
Greenberg. for example, writes chat "Phocography is the most transparenc of the art mediums"
(in Marien. 1997:4).
6 Because photographs are generally regarded as truthworthy. most states allow their uses as
evidence. As Walter Benjamin judiciously observed: "The scene of a crime ( ...} is ( ...}
photographed for the purpose of establishing evidence" (Benjamin: 1936: 226).
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This chaptec will attempt co answer these questions by examining the
fundamental characteristics of the photographic medium and the manner' in
which it can be distinguished from other visual media, as weIl as the different
assumptions - historical, technical and socio-cultural - that have helped
establish photography as an accurate, objective, copy of the real world.
A BRIEF TECHNICAL HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Before examining these characteristics, l believe it is important to briefly
consider the major milestones that consticute che technical history of
photography, since, as David Crowley and Paul Heyer have noted, the history
of communication technology is pivotaI to understand socio-cultural changes
(Crowley and Heyer, 1995: 1). A considerable amount of literature has been
devoted to the development and history of photography7 and much of it
emphasizes that, like every other discovery, photography was the result of
accumulared rechnical and chemical knowledge covering a period of no less than
three hundred years. Indeed, most hiscorians of the medium acknowledge that
the general principles of photography were made possible only when two
scientific processes, that had been known for quite a long time, were finally
combined. The first process, the Camera Obscura (literaLly "dark room"), was
optical while, the second process, the means of fixing the image, was chemical.
The pinhole camera obscura effect, a natural phenomenon, had been
observecl by arcists, scholars and inteLlectuals as far back as the fifth cencury
B.C. At that time, it was known that a pinhole on che wall of a dark room
produced an upside clown image on the opposite wall and basic optical
principles of the pinhole were commented on in Chinese texts. Philosopher Mo
Ti, for instance, recorded the formation of an inverred image with a pinhole or
screen and was aware chat rays from the top of an object produced the lower
part of an image when passing through an opening (Grepstad, 1996: HREF). In
the Western hemisphere, Aristotle, in the fourth century B.C., reportedly
7 See for example Alison and Helmut: Gernsheim's classic, The History of Photography [rom the
Earliest Use o[ the Canlera Ob!CI/ra in the Eleventh Cent/lry ILP to 1914 (1969), Josef Maria Eder's
1945 Histor)' of Photography, Naomi Rosenblum's A World His/ory of Photography (1981),
Beaumont NewhaU's The History of Photography (1982), and John Szarkowski's Phocography
Unril Now (1989). For a colleccion of che fundamemal eady essays on che medium, r direcc
che reader co Photography: Essay! & Images (1980) edited by Beaumont Newhall and che equally
impressive 1Iluminations: Women Writing on Photography [rom 1850s to the Present ediced by Liz
Heron and Val Williams (1996).
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observed the principle of the pinhole image formation. In Problems~ Book XV,
6~ the Greek philosopher wonders: "Why is it that when the sun passes through
quadrilaterals~ as for instance in wickerwork, it does not produce figures

rectangular in shape but circular? [ ... r (Aristot1e: 333). In Book XV, 11, he
writes:
Why is ic chac an eclipse of che sun, if one looks ac ic chrough a sieve or chrough leaves, such as
a plane-cree or ocher broad-leaved cree, or if one joins che fingers of one hand ovee che fingers
of che ochee, che cays are crescenc-shaped where chey reach che earch? Is ic for che same reason as
chac when lighc shines cheough a reccangular peep-hole, ic appeaes circular in che form of a
cone? ( ...} (Ariscode: 341).
Aristode found no satisfactory explanation for his observations and the
problems would remain unresolved until the sixteenth century (Grepstad, 1996:
HREF). Berween the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries however~ many
scholars such as Alhazen, Erasmus Reinhold, Roger Bacon and Gemma Frisius
referred to che pinhole device and its applications to astronomy in their works.
Arabian scholar Ibn AI-Haitam (965-1040), known as Alhazen in the West, is
considered co be the earliest author on the topic of the camera obscura for an
essay entit1ed "On the Form of the Eclipse" CEder, 1945: 37). In the thirteenth
century~ philosopher and scientist Roger Bacon (1214-94) utilized the principles
of the camera obscura for asrronomical observation. Thanks to his method,
eclipses of the sun could be viewed without damaging the eye. In 1545,
asrronomer Gemma Frisius is believed to have published the first drawing of a
pinhole camera obscura in De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica (see figure 1).
The camera obscura, first devised for scientific ends, was adopted and
perfecred over centuries within the fields of drawing techniques. During the
Renaissance period for instance, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
exploired the process as a drafting aid. In addition, he wrote the first detailed
description of the camera obscura in several of his works, including his Codex
At/aT/fiClIs. In this manuscript da Vinci describes not only his experiment to
make copies of plants: "The paper must be coated with lampblack, mixed with
sweet oil, and then the leaf of the plant must be colored with type on the
printing process. It is then prinred as usual, and so the leaf (i.e.~ the impression
from it) will appear dark in the low parts and light in those parts which are
high (. ..}" (in Eder~ 1945: 33-4), but also provides a c1ear description of the
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illum in rahula paradios SoJis quàm in c«1o contingir: $

hoc eft»1i incoe.lo fuperior pars dehquiü pariatur,in

r~diis app:trcbitinfmord~ficae]lv~ ratio ('xigiroptia.
Sic nos ex:u9"è Anno .1 ~44 . Louanü celipfirn SoUs
obferua~mus , inuenimmé}; deficere paulo plus gdex-
L Firsr published illustration of a. camera. obscura:
Gemma. Frisius. Drawing ofa Camera Obscura. Gernsheim Col1ecrion, Ausrin. Texas.

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principle of the camera obscura:
In che facade of a building, or a place, oc a landscape is illuminaced by che sun and a small
hole is drilled in che wall of a room in a building facing chis, which is noc dicecdy lighced by
che sun, chen aIl objeccs illuminaced by che sun will send cheir images chrough chis aperture and
will appear, upside down, on che wall facing che hole (in Eder, 1945: 39).
However, it is fellow Italian Giovanni Battista della Porta, a scientist from
Naples, who published the first account of a theory of the photographe Della
Porta has long been regarded as the inventor of che camera obscura, since in his
1558 !'rlagia natltra!ù, sive de miracrdis rerltn natura!ittm (Natltra! Magic), he
describes the use of an optical lens to replace the pinhole on a camera obscura
(Clarke, 1997: 12). This process improved definition and allowed an image to
be sharply focused on a piece of ground glass, allowing the operator tO trace a
picture on a sheet of paper laid over the glass. However he was by no means its
inventor. In fact, the very cerm camera obscura was coined by Johannes Kepler
(1571-1630), who, in the 1620s, invented the portable camera obscura
(Grepstad, 1996: HREF).
After gaining knowledge of the physical properties of the camera
obscura, many of its users dream of capturing its images in sorne permanent
manner. Just like the pinhole image preceded the construction of the camera
obscura, the knowledge of light-sensitive substances preceded the actual
operation of being able to (chemically) permanently fixing an image. For
hundreds of years before photography was invenred, scientists and chemists had
been experimenting with the reaction of light to certain metallic salts and were
aware of the fact that sorne colours became bleached in the sun. However, they
made little distinction berween heat, air and light and funher development was
provided by Johann Heinrich Schulze's (1687-1744) major discovery. In 1727,
the German scientist found that silver sales darkened when exposed to sunlight
and published resules that distinguished between che action of light and heat
upon silver salts. For Austrian historian Josef Maria Eder, Schulze's discovery
made the German scientist "the invenror of photography in its first inception"
and his findings began "a new epoch in the hisrory of the invention of
photography" (Eder, 1945: 62). FoUowing Schulze's findings, Thomas
Wedgwood (1771-1805) of Britain was one of the first to link opeics and
chemisery together, in arder to record the camera obscura image by means of the
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action of light. Between 1795 and 1802, he experimented intensively, and in
June 1802, in collaboration with chemist Sir Humphry Davy, he published the
results of his experiments in the JOI/mals of the Royal Institution of Great Britain
under the tide "An Account of a Method of Copying Paintings upon Glass, and
of Making Profiles, by the Agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver." Thanks to
his findings, Wedgwood had sorne success using chemicals to capture images.
By casting a shadow on a chemically treared surface, he created photographiclike
images. Unforrunately, once produced, the images stayed sensitive to light
and could only be viewed in dim light. When exposed to light the images
would disappear and Wedgwood was never able co fix them durably.
More successEuI in his attempt tO record permanent1y images of the
camera was French lithographer Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833), one of
the three recognized pioneers of photography, who finally combined the optical
and chemical knowledge that had been accumulated over the centuries. In the
summer of 1826, Niépce reportedly produced the wodd very first permanent
photograph, a view from his window at Le Gras (see figure 2), when he
inserred a polished pewter plate made light-sensitive with bitumen of Judea, a
type of asphalc that becomes insoluble when exposed tO light, into a camera
obscura (Newhall, 1980: 17). An exposure of more than eight hours was
required tO affix the bluny image of his country estace. This first permanendy
captured image was named a "heliograph" (licerally sun drawing, "helio" being
the Greek prefix for sun and "graph" the suffix for "wLÎtten" or "drawn). The
quality, however, was very poor (it did not reproduce colours for instance) and
despite several attempts Niépce could not improve his process. Therefore, a few
years lacer, in 1829, he formed a parrnership with Parisian scene painter and
proprieror of che Dioramas Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851) who
had been experimencing co capture camera obscura images. The partnership
lasced until Niépce's death, four years later.
Daguerre continued co experiment and soon discovered a way of
developing photographic plates, a process which gready reduced the exposure
cime from eighc hours down ta half an houC'. He also found thac an image could
be made permanent by immersing it in salt. In January 1839, Daguerre's
S A kind of illusions theater in which the scenery rook aver from che aCtor which was very
popular ac: che cime.
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W
&_,..-. tJ"6c•• '~)
Il;'S.> '
2. The world firsc phocograph: Nicéphore Niépce.View From The WindtnU At Gras. circa 1827.
Heliograph. Gernheim Colleccion. Harry Ransom Humanicies Research Center. The Universiry of Texas ac
Auscin.
3. T.-H. Maurisset. La DagueTTiotypomanie. 1840. Lichograph. Gisèle Freund archîves.
4. William Henry Fox Talbot. uaxk AMey. 1839. Phocogenic drawing. The Mecropolican Museum ofArr. New York.

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photographic process, che daguerreotype9 , was made public in Paris.
Daguerreotypy consisted of a silvered copper plate that was sensitized over
fumes of iodine and was then exposed in a camera for several minutes. After the
exposure, a positive image was developed by treating the plate with mercury
fumes, which brought out a light image on the silver surface. Finally, the
image was fixed in sodium chloride (common salt), washed in water and dried.
On January 6th, 1839, La Gazette de France declared:
We announce an importanc discovery by our famous diorama painter. M. Daguerre. This
discovery partakes of the prodigious. It upsets aIl sciencific theories on light and Optjcs. and jt
will revolutjonize the art of drawing. M. Daguerre has found the way ta fix the images which
paint themselves within a camera obscura, so thac these images are no longer transient
refleccions of objects. but cheir fixed and everlasting impress, which like a painting or a
drawing, can be caken away from the presence of the abjects (in NewhaH, 1980: 17).
Neverrheless, Daguerre's discovery was officiaily announced only on August
19, 1839 by scientist François Arago at the Institut de France. The invention was
widely acc1aimed, staning in the 1840s a "daguerreocypemania" in France, but
also in the United States (see figure 3 and Freund, 1974: 30). The Daguerreotype
process, though producing amazing images - La Gazette notes for instance that
the images had ua troth which nature alone can give to her works" (in Newhall,
1980: 17), had sorne major drawbacks: it was expensive, easily damaged since
the image was on the surface of the plate - and more important, each
picture was unique, since duplication was impossible. The only way to
reproduce a daguerreocype was to photograph an existing plate. These
disadvancages, coupled with others, such as long exposure times chat did noc
allow to phocograph people and make portraits, as weil as a growing need for a
means of copying pictures, led to the dec1ine of the daguerreotype. Therefore,
by 1860 the daguerreotype was obsolece and was supplanted by Englishman
William Henry Fox Talbot's negative-positive process. Talbot's invention
remains the basis of photographic technique, and earned him the tide of the
"inventor of modern phocography," in Eder's words (Eder, 1945: 63).
In 1834, Talbot (1800-77), a mathematician, botanist and classical
scholar, conceived of a process he called "photogenic drawing" and published
9 In his 1840 essay "The Daguerreorype," Edgar Allan Poe begins by noting the proper spelling
of the word: "This word is propedy spelt Daguerréotype, L..} the French usage requires an
accent on che second e, in the formation of the compound term." In this paper, the common
English spelling, which amies che accent, is used.
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his results in a paper to the Royal Society of London, "Sorne Account of the Arr
of Photogenic Drawing, or, the Process by which Natural Objects May Be
Made to Delineate Themselves without che Aïd of the Artist's Pencïl," January
31, 1839. Thanks to this process Talbot actually produced paper negatives as
soon as August 1835. The small negacive, 1" square, depicced a window of his
home, Lacock Abbey and was ~f poor quality compared with the scriking images
produced by the Daguerreotype process (see figure 4).
By 1840, however, Talbot had made some significant improvements and
introduced a negative paper process named "calotype" (Greek for "beautiful
picture")lO which he patented in 1841. Compared with D~guerreotypes the
quality of the early calotypes was stiU somewhat inferior (as the images were
printed on paper, inevitably, the imperfections of the paper were printed
alongside when a positive was made). Despite this drawback, the great advantage
of Talbot's mechod was that the process involved both a negative and a positive
(unlike the daguerreocype which resulted in a unique positive image as we have
seen earlier) and as che negative image, the calotype, was repeatable indefinicely
in a positive print, finally allowing multiple princs.
From chis point forward, developmencs in chemical processing affecced glass
plate, film, and paper negacives and posicives, continually shaping che industry,
technology, and art known as photography.
In 1851, for instance, two Frenchmen made important technical
improvemencs on Talbot's calocype process. Louis-Desiré Blanquart-Evrard
(1802-72) invented the Albumen paper which yielded a dearer image than
Talbot's salt prints and Gustave LeGray announced his waxed paper process,
which improved the claricy of calotype negatives. The same year, in England, a
new era in photography was introduced by Frederick ScOtt Archer (1813-57),
with the Collodion/wet plate process. This process was much fascer chan
conventional methods, reducing exposure rimes to one co three minuces and
produced a negarive with an acute resolurion of details, using glass as a support.
However, ics major drawback was char developing had ro take place immediacely
after the image had been taken. The collodion was made obsolece in 1871 when
English physician DL Richard Leach Maddox (1816-1902) discovered a way of
using Gelarin (an organic material obcained from animal procein which had
10 Talbot's process is also known as the negative/positive process or the salt print process. It is
important to differentiare the calorype from the salred paper print. The former is the negative
paper process while the latter is the positive produce from it. It is their combination that is
known as the negative/positive process.
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been discovered only a few years before) instead of glass as a basis for the
photographie plate. His discovery led to the development of the dry plate
process. This pcocess marked a turning point in photography since it made wetplaces
and darkroom tents unnecessary. Moreovec, dry plates could be
developed much more quickly than with any previous technique. Initially it was
very insensitive compared with existing processes, but it was refined tO the
extent that the idea of factory-made photographic material was now becoming
possible. The day where photographs could be raken without any specialized
knowledge was getring doser...
The nexr srep forward came with the invention of Celluloid in the early
eighteen-sixties, and when John Carburt, in 1888 pecsuaded a manufacturer tO
produce very thin celluloid as a backing for sensirive materia1. George Eastman
(1854-1932) is parricularly remembered for introducing roll film in 1884.
Four years later he introduced a handy camera, invenred the name «Kodak" and
photography was finally able to reach a much grearer number of people as
cameras were put inco mass circulation (Eder, 1945: 489). No history of
photography would be complete without mentioning Sir John Frederick
William Herschel, a close friend of Talbot and a fellow photographie
experirnenter, who in addition tO broadening the knowledge of photochemica!
actions, will mosdy be remembered as che person who coined the word
"phocography" in a lecrure he gave before the Royal Society of London, on
March 14, 1839 (Eder, 1945: 258).
As we have seen, phorography, rhough its componencs had been known
"for centuries, only appeared in che ninereenth century and many cricics have
tried ro underscand che medium beyond a mere succession of technological
innovations and obsolescences, atcempting co comprehend why and how the
technology appeared precisely during this particular epoch. As Geoffrey
Batchen expresses in his book BI/t-ning with Desire: The Conception of Photography,
ir is fundamental to examine "why it cook so long co invenc a workable
phocographic process or why such a process was conceived in the firsr place"
(Barchen, 1997: 129).
There are [WO major explanations, sorne would say "tales:' for che
emergence of phocography. On che one hand, in William J. Mitchell's words,
"commencators of more positivistic and conservative ouclook," argue rhac
rechnical innovations emerge on cheir own, creacing new social and cultural
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potential (Mitchell? 1992: 20). The determinisc vision that "new technologies
are discovered by an essentially internaI process of research and development,
which chen sets che condicions of social change and progress" as Raymond
Williams puts it? (in Winston, 1996: 1) suggests that, paraphrasing Martha
RosIer, cultural imperatives follow rechnology. If one examines che popular
accounts chat surround che discovery of phocography, one will realize to whac
excenc chese discourses relate che discovery in rerms of serendipiry, a "eureka"
discovery due mostly co good fortune. This is for example illusnared in the
movie The Governess. This 1998 picture cells us the Stary of a nineceench-century
young woman who assists her employer in trying co capture images formed by
the camera obscura. She discovers how co fix che images permanently when she
accidentally spills salt warer on a piece of paper previously exposed in the
camera obscura. There have been many similar quainc accounts. In L. J. M.
Daglierre: The History of the Diorama and the Daguerreotype, phocography historians
Helmut and Alison Gernsheim debunk sorne of the myths related co che
Frenchman's discovery. One of them goes like this:
(...} Daguerre. resting in a darkened room. observed a ray of sunlight coming through a chink
in che shurrers and projecting the image of a cree on to a painting he was working on. The
foLlowing moming. asronished to find faint traces of the image still on the painting. Daguerre
cried ra repeat the phenomenon. but in vain. He then acrempred it in che camera obscura. and
remembering at lase that he had mixed iodine in his colours. undereook a long series of
experiments on the lighc-sensitivicy of iodine. which Led him ra phoragraphy (Gemsheim and
Gernsheim. 1968: 48).
As the Gernsheirns observe, "this picturesque myth (. ..} is too fantastic ta merit
a decailed confutation (Gernsheim and Gernsheim, 1968: 48). Nevertheless, it
n

is interesting to note that these sorts of accouncs are scill very popular.
On the other hand, sorne theorists and historians, such as Heinrich
Schwarz? have argued chat rechnical innovations are the result of social pressure:
~

"The year of Daguerre's invention, as in every important invention, meant

nothing but the moment when che acquired knowledge had become so convincing
and che need of realizing this invencion sa pressing that it could no longer be
delayed by any difficulties or obscacles" (in Mitchell, 1992: 18-9). For critic
Martha RosIer? "technology is following a cultural imperative racher chan vice
versa" (RosIer, 1996: 39). In Blirning with Desire: The Conception of Photography,
15
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Geoffrey Batchen investigares photography's timing and place of appearance
examining the works of sorne artists and sciencists who "felt che hitheC'to
strange and unfamiliar desire to have images formed by light spontaneously fix
themselves," long before Daguerre and Talbot announced their discoveries in
1839 (Batchen, 1997: 38). Many other critics have similady tried to appreciate
this will, and many single out a novel, written in 1760 by French wrirer
Charles François Tiphaigne de la Roche (1729-1774), entitled GiphanJie.
Beaumont Newhall even incLudes the important passages of the stocy, which
offer an uncanny prediction of photography, in his collection of essays
Photography: Essays and Images under the tide "Phocography Predictedo" In this
imaginary tale, de la Roche depicts a srrange land where the "transient images"
of nature are "fixed" by the action of light:
Thou knowest that the [(lYS of light, reflected from different bodies. make a picture and paint
the bodies upon aIl polished surfaces. on the retina of the eye. for instance. on warer, on glass.
The elementary spirits have srudies ta ftx these transient images: chey have composed a subtile
(sic) manner. very viscous. and proper tO harden and dry. by the help of which a picture is
made in the twinkle of an eye (...) The first effect of the canvas is that of a mirrour (o ••} But
what the glass cannot do. che canvas. by means of the viscous matter. retains the images. The
mirraur shows the abject exacdy; but keeps none; our canvases show them with che same
exacrness. and retains them aIl. This impression of the images is made the first instant they are
received on the canvas, which IS immediately carried inca sorne dark place; an hour after, the
subtile matter dries. and you have a picrure sa much the more valuable. as it cannoe be imitaced
by art nor damaged by time (. ..) The justeness of the design. the cruth of the expression, the
gradacion of the shades ( ...} draws upon our canvases images which deceive the eye and make
reason ra doube, wherher what are caIled real abjects. are not phantoms which impose upon the
sight, the hearing, the feeling, and aIl the sense at once (in Newhall. l760: 13-4)0
The author never found out how prophetie his tale would appear a few decades
after his deatho
Naomi Rosenblum, ln A World History of Photography argues that the
camera's images appeared and remained viable because they filled cultural and
sociological needs chat were not being met by other means of represencation
such as illustration 0[' paintings. As she putS it: "By the cime it was announced
ln 1839, Western indust['ialized society was ready for photography"
(Rosenblum, 1981: 15). One could argue that the will for always more
accurare representation is part of people's desire co see and depict: from cavedrawing
to the Camera Obscura, from still co moving images, from silent to
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talking movies, from black and white to color, and then from technologies such
as !MAX tO 3-D virtual reality. it seems that men and women are constantly
looking for more Urealist" and compelling representations of the real wodd
(to the point where the representations are more real than the real, as Jean
BaudriIlard would argue). We have to remember that for many philosophers,
from Plato tO Blake, mankind lacked the ability to perceive things directiy. As
Plato hints in his weIl known UMyth of the Cave" (Book VII of The Repllblic).
men are misled by their senses and consequendy are unable to face the Truth:
..And if the [prisoner/manJ is compelled to look straight at the light, will he
not have a pain in his eyes which will make him mro away to take refuge in the
objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in realiry
dearer than the things which are now being shown ra him?" The apparition of
photography reveals a desire to escape the limitations of subjectiviry in order to
perceive reality Uas it really is." As Noël Burch puts il:, discussing the origins
of cinema in an essay entided uCharles Baudelaire versus Doctor Frankensrein:"
The 19ch cencury wirnessed a series of scages in che chruscing progress of a vasc aspiration which
emerges as che quincessence of che bourgeois ideology of represenracion. From Daguerre's
Diorama co Edison's firsc Kinecophonograph. each scace of che pre-history of che cinema was
incended by its iniciators - and seen by ics publiciscs - as represencacives of cheir class. as
anocher scep cowards che "ce-creacion" of realicy, cowards a "perfecc illusion" of che percepcual
world (in Jay, 1995: 346).
Bernard Marbot, curator in charge of Eady Photography in the
Department of Prints and Photography at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris,
emphasises this point in his essay uTowards the Discovery (Before 1839)." As
he observes, the rise of the French bourgeoisie after 1789 and the progress of
science favored a growing interest in objective and scientific rationalism which
created a need for Ua mode of representation which could swifdy, accurately
and comprehensively render visible and measurable even such bodies and
phenomena as were invisible by reason of their substance, dimensions or
inaccessibility" (Marbot, 1986: 15). According to Marbot, this explains
photography's place of invention: uNow, at the end of the eighteenth century,
the scene was set for photography to enter upon the role it was to play from
1839 onwards; the prologue came from the countries most advanced
economically and politically: France and Britain." For Marbot, society was not
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ready for phoragraphy hicherro even chough aU che processes had been known
for quite sorne time. As he daims:
If photography did not see che lighc of day in che eighteeneh cencury, ic was noc because che
various pieces of che puzzle were cao widely dispersed among arrises and scholars,
mathemacicians and chemises, nor was ic chae che imagination capable of bringing che exiscing
cechnical knowledge co fruition was lacking. The fact was, racher, chat society was noc ready for
ie (Marboe, 1986: 15).
Final1y, in the introduction of his inreresting account of che developmenc of
visual media cechnology, Technologies of Seeing, Brian Winston wrices chat
utechnologiscs are working co an agenda determined by society" (Winston,
1996: 6). According to him, chis explains the phenomenon of simulcaneous
"inventions." Even chough Winston cites the telephone as an example of
simultaneous discoveries, one cannot help thinking of Daguerre and Talbot,
who, as we have seen, announced cheir processes to fix permanencly the images
formed by light aImosc exactly at the same time.
MODERNI5M AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Whatever the reasons behind the appearance of photography in our lives might
be, no one can deny chat chemical photography happened ra be invenred "in a
period which liked to think of itself as the age of absolute knowledge, a century
of modernist belief in science, the century of Auguste Comce's positivist
philosophy" (Didi-Huberman, 1986: 71). And as a matter of fact, many
theorists did not fail ra mention and comment on the conneccion beeween both.
John Berger and Jean Mohr, for instance, wrice in Another Way of Telling: "The
camera was invenced in 1839. Auguste Comte was just finishing his Cours de
Philosophie Positive. Positivism and che camera and sociology grew up
togecher" (Berger and Mohr, 1982: 99). Edward W, Said shares Berger's view,
but also mentions the classic realiscic novel as coeval in phoragraphy's origins
(Said, 1983: 157).
It has been widely acknowledged thac sorne aspects of modernity have
played a primary role in shaping phocography as an objeccive represencacive
medium. For nineteench century people, and, once again, especial1y for the
bourgeoisie, the most valued represencations were the ones realistic and
objective in nature. Therefore, the apparendy impartial eye of the camera
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happened to be the perlect instrument to achieve che naturalisric documentation
characteristic of the Victorian era (Price, 1997: 67). Many eady commentators
of photography enthusiastically welcomed the invention and subscribed co the
belief chac photography was a medium of cruth and accuracy, a guarancee of
auchenticity. For American author Edgar Allan Poe, for inscance, the instrument
icself musc be regarded as a criumph of modern science. As he wrires in an essay
encided "The Daguerreotype" - published in the Alexander's Weekly Messenger jusc
monchs afrer Daguerre's process was formally announced in France - the early
form of photography might be "che most important, and perhaps the most
extraordinary triumph of modern science" (Poe, 1840: HREF). In this article,
Poe does not limit his enthusiasm tO his declaration that "the Daguerreotype
place is infinirely (we use che cerm advisedly) is infinitely more accurate in ics
representation than any painting by human hands," buc aiso summarizes the
early understanding of photography, praising "the supremeness of [the
process'J perfection" (Poe, 1840: HREF).
The abiliry to freeze or fix the fleeting images of che camera obscura
allowed sciencists co inspect and study the represented content, meeting the
needs of a period of unprecedented scientific and industriai changes. Astronomer
Janssen hints at the use of phocographs as a potential tool for scientific
neutrality when he observes that "the photographic plate is che true retina of the
scientist" (in Didi-Huherman, 1986: 71). Moreover, as Brian Winston poincs
out in Technologies of Seeing, photography was introduced to the public as a tool
of science and those who used the camera were considered "non tanqllam pictor,
sed tanqliam mathematicus," noc so much painters as mathematicians (Watson,
1996: 40). It is important to noce here that sorne of the first accounts of the
medium gready stressed its scientific camponenc, thus conditioning the public
that the camera, as a scientific instrument never lies (Winston, 1995: 130). For
example, in "Sorne Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing," Talboc hints at
the scientific potential of che photographic medium when he wrices chat "this
remarkable phenomenon, of whatever value ic may curo out in ics application to
the arts, will at least be accepted as a new proof of the value of che inductive
methods of modern science" (in Newhall, 1980: 25).
Regarding this aspect of photography as a modernist medium that allows
the eye to exrend its vision, the work of British artise and inventor Eadweard
Muybridge (1830-1904) is inreresting to examine. Muybridge used the camera
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to capture animaIs and human aehleres in motion and published his phoeographs
in 1887 under the complex tide Aniinal Locomotion: an Electro-photographic
Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements. One of the mose weil
known series of Muybridge's experiments is "Horse in motion" (see figure 5).
This photographie sequence reveals the varieties of troth the camera can see and
which the eye is incapable of distinguishing. His work was highly praised and
arrists as weIl as scientists appreciare its potential significance.
As a result of al! these factors, the camera became a guarantee of
scientific n'lith. As Brian Winston remarks in Cfai1lling the Real, "the long
history of pictorial representation as a mode of scientific evidence" coupled
with the "tendency of modern science to produce data via instruments [ ...}
analogous to the camera" supports the status of the camera as a scientific
instrument (Winston, 1995: 127). To SUffi it up, the fact that photography was
born in a modern era and that consequently it was developed as a modernist
medium, has been essential to the propagation of the myth that the camera
cannot lie lL .
"THE PENCIL OF NATURE"
U nlike other means of representation which are distrusted because they are
products of their author's intentions, photographs are regarded as trusrworthy
on account of the role of nature in their creation. For many observers, once the
photographec has completed his guidance, the pcocess is plainly and simply
chemical and automatic. It is the rechnology itself that many consider the
guarantee of an accurate transcription of reality.
If one examines the way photography has been described over the decades,
one will realize that for many commenrators the power of aurhentication
conveyed by the photograph relies on its "natura1" process. Ir is inreresting ta
note, for instance, that the three recognized "fathers" of photography, though
using different formulations, have commenred on their discovery in very
similar rnanners. Niépce, Daguerre and Talbot have aU thought of photography
as a kind of partnership with nature, a means which allows a natural force,
light, to speak for itself, contrary ta other means of representation which screen
its message through personal inrerpretation. The words used ta name the process
11 For an in depch analysis of photographie hiscory as a modernise mych, l direcc che reader co
che second chapcer of Mary Warner Maden's Photography and ils Critics.
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• 5. Photographying motion:

Eaclweard Muybridge. Galloping Rone. 1878. Albumen print. George Eastman House, Rochester, N.\':

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are revelatory of this attitude. Niépce, for instance, referred co his first images
on paper as "hetïographs'P (sun drawing or sun written as we have seen earlier),
while Talbot used the term "photogenic" drawings (light produced). In
addition, erymologically, "photograph" derives from (wo Greek words, "phos"
(light) and "graphie" (writing or drawing), that cogether mean "writing with
light" or "light written.'P
This metaphoric instrumentality is also dearly illustrated by the tide
Talbot chose for his book: The Pendl of Nature (1844-1846), known as the first
photographically illustrated publication, featuring plates of architecture, stilllifes
and work of ans. In a text announcing its publication, Talbot wLÎtes:
"Naturally, the book's illustrations are themselves the images as they were
created by the effeets of light and not engraving based on them... The illustrations
in the work announced here were created with extreme care and solely -with optical
and chemical processes ... and the views depicred contain nothing other than the pitre
and Ilnaitered brush stroke of nature" (in Rotzer, 1996: 15, emphasis mine).
In 1838, Daguerre circulated a notice meant tO attract potential investors
ln which he describes his daguerreotype as being not merely "an instrument
which serves to draw nature; on the contrary it is a chemical and physical
process which gives her the power ra reproduce herself' (in Gernsheim, 1968:
81). In his address co the French Upper Chamber, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
described enthusiastically the qualities of Daguerre's invention, stressing out
likewise: "The daguerreotype represents inanimace nature with a degree of
perfection unattainaole by the ordinary processes of drawing and painting - a
perfection equal to that of Nature herself' (in Gernsheim, 1982: 45).
In "Sorne Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing," another
compelling metaphor, Talbot wrices enthusiastically about the "boundless
powers of natural chemistry" and in a section eneided "On the Arr of Fixing a
Shadow," he notes the "marvelolls" character of the phenomenon, as he puts it, its
.. nat/lral magic" (in N ewhall, 1980: 24-5).
As Mary Price words ie in her book The Photograph: A Strange Confined
Space, p~otography could be regarded for Talbor's contemporaries as "an
instrument of lighr direcdy inscribing itself on the receptive paper" (Price,
1994: 7). The fact that photographs are nothing more than the result of an
optical image of light coming from the subject itself, gives them an authenticity
or feeling of reality not found in painting or other hand-done productions
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(Warren, 1993: 217). In his article on the Daguerreotype, Poe, after
mentioning the chemistry involved in the process, suggests the impartial and
natural aspect of the process simply writing that "the action of the light does
the rest" (Poe, 1840: HREF).
More conremporary critics have aiso excensively commenced on the
optical/chemical aspect of photography. In a 1974 essay entitled "On the Nature
of Photography" for instance, self-described "media analyst" Rudolf Arnheim
defines "the fundamental peculiarity of the photographic medium" as being that
"the physicai objects themselves peint their image by means of the optical and
chemical action of light" (Arnheim, 1974: 155). For the German modern
theorist, this procedure implies that " a photograph has an authenticity from
which painting is barred by birth" (Arnheim, 1974: 154). John Berger
formulates the same idea in his book Another Way of Telling, when he daims
that photography's "primary materials are Iight and time" (Berger, 1982: 85)
and that photography "cannot lie because it prints directly" (Berger, 1982: 96).
Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, who both consider the arguments for and
against photographic truth in respectively, On Photography and Camera LI/cida,
condude that photography is more real than other media of representation since
it operates in a mechanicai way. As Sontag explains, a photograph is "a
registering of an emanation," "a material vestige of its subject" because it is
formed by capturing light waves (Sontag, 1973: 154). Finally, William J.
Mitchell daims in The Reconfigllred Eye chac if one resumes photography co ics
core aspect, technically phocographs can be viewed as a mere "fossilized light,"
created by a chemical and mechanicai process that captures a direct physical
imprint of reality (Mitchell, 1992: 24).
"YOU PUSH THE BUTTON, WE DO THE REST" OR
THE AUTOMATIC QUALITY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Another aspect of photography which validates its supposed inregrity is based on
the mechanical properties of the camera. Indeed, part of the credibility of the
photograph test on the knowledge of the mechanical, apparently objective, mode
of operation of the camera 12 • Victorians, for instance, regarded photography as
the product of a "regularized and predictable process" and for that reason
12 lt is worth rnentioning that the idea that photography is essentially objective is, ra sorne
extent, reflected in French and Italian photographic terrninology as the words for "lens" are
respectively "objectif' and "obiettivo."
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considered ic a "truthful" medium (Willis, 1990: 201). Nevertheless, chis
senciment is perhaps best illustrated by Kodak's well-known advercising
slogan: "You push che bunon, we do the resc." This slogan epitomizes the
mechanical aspecc of che proeess, suggesting chac the aet of caking a photograph
involves nothing more than pushing a bunon and chat no additional intervention
IS requited.
This is one of the reasons why, unlike other signs chac are rendered in
painc or prose, phocographs appear co eonvey realicy without the mediaeion of an
artise or interpreter: photography differentiates icself from ocher forms of
represencation because it (supposedly) does noc rely on human intervention. In
his 1967 essay '"The Ontology of the Photographie Image," André Bazin
compares phocography co painting and writes about boch the aucomatie quality
of the camera and the absence of man's intervencion:
Originality in phocography as distinct from originality in painting lies in the e.fSentially objective
natlire of photography. For the first cime, ber:ween che originacing abject and ics reproduCtion there
incervenes only the instrumentalicy of a non living agent:- For che firsc cime an image of che
world is formed allto"latically. witholit the creative intervention of man. (Bazin, 1967: 13, my
emphasis).
Bazin is not che only ewentiech-century commencator co pursue this cheme. In his
essay '"On che Nature of Phocography," Rudolf Arnheim also wrices about che
triumph of mechanical reproduccion over subjectivity and scresses che
importance of the "mechanical" origins of phocography. Other critics have
produced very similar statements. American philosopher Stanley Cavell, for
instance, echoes Bazin's formulation almost word by word, when he writes the
following in The \f/orld Viewed (New York, 1971): "Phocography overcame
subjectivity in a way underdreamed by painting, one which does not so much
defeat the ace of painting as escape it alcogether: by alttoma!Ïsm, by removing the
human agent from che acc of reproduction" (in Snyder and Allen, 1975: 145).
Moreover, Susan Sontag summarizes perfectly che belief many eady
photographers had in the photographic image to be objective and untainted.
Indeed, as she remarks, early photographers believed in the aucomatic nature of
the recording proeess and cended to creat che camera as a "copy machine," and
thought of themselves as "non interfering observers," "scribes more than
poets" (Soncag, 1973: 88). subject, object or event photographed
in a supposedly objective manner. The will to record and document the
everyday world began when sorne "socially conscious" reporters realized the
pocential of the camera as a wicness. Since chac time, phocographs were
considered co transform inco undeniable "facts" what they were porcraying and
many phocographers thought their work might help bring awareness of what
was going on in society. John Berger describes the early phorojournalisrs'
aspirations in Another Way of Telling: "The idealistic early press phocographersin
che twenties and chirties of this century-believed chat their mission was tO
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bring home the troth to the world" (Berger, 1982: 97). In the documentary
tradition phocographers are witnesses and che phocograph is a testimony of
empirical troth. As Mitchell notes "The cools of tradicional phocography were
well suiced co Strand's and Weston's high-modernist intentions - their quest
for a kind of objective troth assured by a quasi-scientiflc procedure and closed,
finished perfection" (Mitchell, 1992: 8).
Danish-born photographer and social reformer Jacob Riis (1849-1914)
appears to be at the origin of American social documentary (Scange, 1989: 1).
Riis used phocography to draw attention ra the condirions under which the poor
in America, especially the immigrants, were living_ In his best-known first
book, How the Other Ralf Lives (1890), a collection of photographs, he exposed
the appalling conditions of the time. His work caused a considerable stir and
secured a number of reforms from Theodore Roosevelt who was reporredly
moved by Riis· work (Leggat, 1997: HREF). Anocher photographer whose
work had a definite political nature and revealed the misery of his time was
sociologist Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940). In rhe early 19105, he worked as
an official photographer for the National Labor Committee and exposed rhe
horrors of child labor. UI wanted to show things that had to be corrected," Hine
once declared. In the 19305, his work finally bore fruit when child labor
became conrrolled in the U nired States (Leggat, 1997: HREF).
It is at the same epoch (1935-1943), thar the American governrnenr,
understanding the power of photographs, implemenced the Farm Securiry
Administration (FSA) Project. Headed by Roy E. Striker, the Project aimed ra
document rural poverty while appealing to the sensibilities of middle-class
urbanites. Photographers such as Hine, but also Walker Evans and Dorothea
Lange, along with many others, worked for the federal government in order to
record pictorially the hard rime the American nation, especially rural areas, was
going through. The project produced sorne of the most enduring images of the
Great Depression. At the time, the photographs, publicly displayed In an
exhibition called "How American People Live," had a profound impact on
contemporary viewers. Today, the FSA photographs are still considered as the
primary basis for our undersranding of chis era. In addition, these images have
shaped a standard for documentary photography with their simple, direct
recording of an epoch.
As a resulc of documeotary phorography, the medium established itself
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as a wicness and claimed co be a crue and disinreresced picture of the world.
Even early frauds could not complecely challenge the confidence people had in
che camera. In the early 1870s for instance, DL Barnardo, a London
rnissionary, produced ubefore and after" photographs of orphans in his care in
order to show che productive work of his charitable insticucion. However, Dr.
Barnardo was charged for deceiving che public based on che face chat the images
were noc authentic. This incidenc put into lighc sorne of the practices in the
social uses of documentary phocography which were casually umanipulated" in
such eerms for purposes of rhetoric (Rosenblum, 1981: 352). John Berger
believes that the reason why the positivist view has remained dominant, despire
its inadequacies, is because there are no oeher views possible "unless one cornes
to cerms with the revelational nature of appearances" (Berger, 1982: 119). As
Florian Rotzer daims: "Photographers have always known chat direct
photography is subjeccive and scaged. At the same time, there has been an
unspoken (?) agreement between the photographer and his audience to accept the
mych of photographie truth" (Rotzer, 1996: 13).
THE "ARTIFICIAL EYE" OR THE ANALOGY OF THE EYE
Finally, photographs held a special pOSitIOn for many men and women of the
ninereenth century for the very simple reason that chey corresponded co whac
chey could see: photographs appeared as a truchful replication of human sighr.
As Mary Warner Marien expresses it in Photography and ifs Critics: uthe
photograph suggested infaUible representacion because of ics parallel to sighc.
The exactitude of the Daguerrean image, which people studied under a
magnifying glass, was a source of awe" (Marien, 1997: 40). Lady Elizabeth
Eastlake, who was amongst the very first commencacars of che new medium,
saw phoeography as the Usworn witness" of the appearance of things (Eastlake,
1857: 94). As a maCter of face, most people aI' the time accepted chat the medium
rendered a complete and faithful image of ics subjects and viewed photographs
as an absalure macerial accuracy (Price and Wells, 1997: 21). The analogy of
the camera ca the eye has been scressed by its very invencors from the very
beginnings of che medium. Niépce, for example, refers co his camera as an
"acrificial eye" in two separate lecrers co his brother Claude, on March 12 and
May 5, 1816 (in Batchen, 1997: 81). Talbot uses a similar metaphor in The
Pend! of Nature writing about the ueye of che camera" (in Batchen, 1997: 81).
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Moreover, in a statement to the Académie des Sciences organized on January 7,
1839, physicist Jean-Baptiste Biot praised Daguerre for putting at the disposaI
of scientists an "artificial retina" (in Gernsheim, 1968: 84). Snyder and Walsh
refer to this aspect of photography as the '''visua1' model." As they remark in
their Essay "Photography, Vision, and Representation," this "visual model
stresses the supposed similarity beeween the camera and the eye as optical
systems, and posits that a photograph shows us (or ought to show us) 'what we
would have seen if we had been there ourselves'" (Snyder and Walsh, 1975:
149). As a resule, camera has often been used metaphorically by writers tO
suggesc neutral recording. One of the most famous examples can be found ln
Christopher Isherwood's The Berlin Stories, when he writes: "r am a camera with
its shutter open, quite passive, recording. not thinking" (in ~fitchell, 1992: 29).
PHOTOGRAPHY AS AN INSTRUMENT OF POWER
Entering the çrematorinm. Tomas did not rmderstand ri/hat was happening: the ha!! was lit I/p like a film
stl/dio. Looking arol/nd in hewilderment, he noticedcameras set np in three places. No, if was not television;
it was the police. They were filming the fimeral to stndy who had attended if.
- Milan Kundera, The Unhearable Lightness of Being, 1984.
Finally, influenced by the work of Michel Foucault. sorne postmodern critics
have suggesred chat the belief in the veracity of the photographic image has been
primarily sustained by the authority of societis institutions. They argue chat
these institutions, most notabLy law and medicine, have developed practices of
observation, recording and surveillance through photography. In an interview
conducted in 1987, John Tagg. who has writren extensively on the uses of
photography within power relations, claimed that the value of photography as
evidence: "was something chat was inscitutionally and historically produced"
(Lukitsh, 1987: 232). Furthermore. in the introduction to his essays The Bllrden
of Representation. Tagg writes chat the fact "a photograph can come tO stand as
evidence [. ..] rests not on a natural or existentiaL fact, but on a social. semiotic
process" (Tagg. 1988: 4).
Many commentators regard the 1871 Commune, an episode of France's
period of the Second Empire (1852-1870), as the first forensic use of the
camera. According to Gen Doy, who provides an insightful Look at chis event in
her essay "The Camera against the Paris Commune," the concept of
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"objeccivicy" was conscrucced ac chac cime (Doy, 1979: 21). However, ic is
incerescing co noce chat chen che cechnology did noc allow action phocographs 13
and as a result, aIl the pictures were actually scaged and posed with willing
participants, proud to be immorcalized for poscericy by che camera.
Nevertheless, these piccures were used for very differenc ends: They were used
to identify the Communards (Doy, 1979: 25).
Since this first episode, the camera has been used concinuously by
governments as an inscrument of surveillance and repression. In Susan Sontag's
words:
Phocographs furnish evidence. Someching we hear abouc, buc doubc, seems proven when we're
shown a phocograph of ic. In one version of ics uriliry, che camera record incriminares. Scarcing
wich cheir use by che Paris police in che murderous roundup of Communards in June 1871,
phorographs became a useful cool of modern scares in che surveillance and coner'ol of cheir
increasingly mobile populations (Soncag, 1973: 5).
Czechoslovakian wricer Milan Kundera has suggested extremely weIl che
ambiguity of the camera as a cool co record, but also as a cool co idencify in The
Unbearable Lightness of Being. In this novel he tells the scory of Theresa, a young
phocographer who uses her camera to capture on film the invasion of che
Russians during the Spring of Prague (1968) and describes how her
phocographs were chen used by che Communisc governmenc co identify and
oppress its contescants. In che following passage of che book, Kundera depicrs
chis ambivalence of the camera, how images chat were supposed co denounce a
parcicular evenc got ewisted co become accusacory evidences:
The boy's facher said, "This phorograph was che only 'corpus delieri: He denied ic ail unril
chey showed ic ta him:'
He cook a c1ipping ouc of his wallec. "Ic came ouc in che Times in che aurumn of 1968,"
Ic was che piccure of a young man grabbing anocher man by che chroac and a crowd looking on in
che background. "Collaboracor Punished" read che capeion.
Tereza lee our her breach. No, ic wasn1c one of hers. Walking home wich Karenin chrough
noceurnal Prague, she choughc of ehe days she had spenr phocographing eanks. How naive chey
had been, chinking chey were risking cheir lives for cheir councry when in face chey were helping
che Russian police (Kundera, 1984: 141-2).
13 Mostly due co long exposure cimes and co che use of wee places which necessicaced careful
preservacion and developmenr (Doy, 1979: 23).
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By establishing and constructing the value of the photograph as a trustable and
honest representation of something which happened or was, institutions have
provided themselves with substantial opporrunities to propagate their doctrines.
Therefore, it is not surprising chat governments and other persuasive fields have
used photographs tO promote their ideologies. With photography these
institutions happened to create a medium for propaganda far more powerful
chan words.
As we have seen, photography has benefitted from the time of its
discovecy of a great faith. Many early commentators described the photographic
process as a neutral one, and subscribed to the belief that photography was a
medium of truth and unassailable accuracy. Even coday, the precision with
which photographic images reproduces reality has not been equaled by any other
medium. Therefore, it is not surprising that theorists continue to praise the
objectiviry of the medium. In 1985, for instance Annette Kuhn was stiLL writing
that "one of the defining features of photography as against certain other forms
of visual representation ris} its capacity to appear truthful" and that
"photography seems tO record, rather than incerpret, the piece of worLd in front
of the camera" (Kuhn, 1985: 26). Even postmodernist philosopher Jean
Baudrillard, known for his cold pessimism, formulates photography in a
similar way: "r must capture this object at the moment of its appearance, before
ie takes on a ffit:aning. And the lens... (l'objectif) places you in direct transition
with the object" (in Bramly, 1993: 81). Nicholas Zurbrugg, who convinced
Baudrillard to put sorne of his photographs in a coLLection of essays he was
publishing, believes chat "Baudrillard's photographie interest is a dear sign
that he is not as pessimistie as he might seem." As he puts it, "If you were
really a philosopher saying evecything's finished, you'd be giving up. You'd
juSt be moaning" (Leith, 1998: 16).
Nevertheless, as we shaH see in the next chapter, the truth effect of
phocography has been ehallenged throughout its hiscocy.
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CHAPTER TWO
DISMANTLING THE "TRUTH" EFFECT OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC (MAGE
Ali images that appear in the press are manipnlated in one way, shape, or ftrm. whether they're hy choice hy
that image heing chosen over another - or hy cropping, or by digital manipulation. You're heing
manipulated a thonsand different ways, and as long as you are somewhat au'are of the fitct, then thue's not
so mllch to be afraid of. Bllt if yorl think that what )'OlI're seeing is the trt/th, then YOII're in for hig
trol/hle.
- David Byrne, 1994.
{M}anipulation is the essence of photography, phocography would nac exist wiehout ie .
- Victor Burgin, 1976.
As we have seen in the preceding chapter, many different reasons have
established the photographie image as a truthful, unquestionable representation
of reality. However, recent eriticism has ehallenged the positions previously
diseussed, asking Uwhether the photographie process itself reaHy guarantees
mueh of anything about the relation between image and imaged" (Snyder and
Allen. 1975: 148). As we shall see. photographs are eonstructed and
manipulared in a vast number of ways. As Annette Kuhn summarizes ir:
"Photography aetually involves jusr as much artifice as does any other mode of
visual representation. There is plenty of seope for human intervention at every
stage of making photographs: photos are no more innocent than any other
produet of human society" (Kuhn, 1985: 26). As the appearance of digitalimaging
reehnology seems ro announce the end of the blind trust we once had in
the phOtographie image, it is important ta remember that the question of the
manipulation of photographs is not new. Number of arrists, theorists and eritics
have challenged chis assumption through their works and this, sinee 1839. As
Martha RosIer, an arrist and eritical theorist. reminds us in her essay Ulmage
Simulations, Computer Manipulations: Sorne Considerations:" "Any familiariry
with photographie history shows that manipulation is integral to photography"
(RosIer, 1996: 37). In this chapter, l intend to examine this history of
manipulation, the different manners, mostly ceehnieal, which have eontradieted
the supposed integrity of the photograph for deeades and the ways in whieh
32.

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theorists and arrists have helped dismande the myth of photographie truth,
stressing the eonstructed, artifactual and ideological characteristics of the
medium.
Ir has been widely aeknowledged that virrually since the camera was
invented, photographers have had opportunities co manipulate images and distort
reality. The first alteration of a phocograph can be traced back to 1839, the very
same year photography was invented. Helmut Gernsheim, in his History of
Photography, discinguishes Swiss Johann Baptisc Isenring, a coppeLplate engraver
of copographieal views, as the first person who retouehed a photograph, wich
his attempt to give daguerreorypes a more lifelike appearance, coloring them
with dry powders. More specïfically, Isenring over-painted an image and
scratched on che silvered plate the pupils of the eyes to correct the unsharpness
caused by the sitter's blinking (Gernsheim, 1969: 160). However, according to
Gisèle Freund, it was a German photographer named Hampfstangl who
invented the first technique tO recouch the negative in the mid-1840s, a decade
after Talbot's negative-positive process had begun replacing the daguerreotype,
and in 1855, at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, Hampfstangl exhibited two
versions of the same portrait: one retouched, the ochee noc (Freund, 1974: 689).
Recouching, which implies a direct human interference, marked a decisive
momenc for photography, the "beginning of its decay." Indeed, as Freund noces,
the inconsiderace and abusive use of the cechnique "eliminaced aIl che
characceriscics of a faithful reproduction, caking away phocography's
fundamencal value" (Freund, 1974: 69).
RETOUCHING
Within che wide ranges of techniques available to photographers to enhance
theie work, che most commonly used is probably retouching. According to
Gordon Baldwin retouching can be defined as "che careful manual alteration of
the appearance of a princ or negative" chat is "most often used in porcraiture co
make cosmecic improvement co a sitter's appearance, such as removing minor
facial blemishes, sofcening oudines or wrinkles, or 'powdering' shining noses"
(Baldwin, 1991: 74).
Photography has been linked with portraiture from its beginnings, or at
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leasc as soon as the time of exposure was reduced enough co allow ie 14 . This
application of phocography co porrraiture was cleady the resule of the public's
demand15 . As we have seen eadier, phorography can be undersrood as rhe
ultimate response co a constant need for more accurace representation and, as
Naomi Rosenblum remarks, the new medium continued "the impulse co
represent human form chac goes back to che dawn of art" (Rosenblum, 1981:
39). As a result of this need for an always more cruchful likeness, portrait
photography quickly supplanted the miniature painting which until then had the
favor of the upper classes 16 . In 1859, Charles Baudelaire, who Beaumont
Newhall regards as "one of che mosc brilliant and perceptive arr critics of his
time;' wrote about his concemporaries' vain and narcissistic desire to have their
being immorralized on a photographic plate, describing the "madness," and the
"extraordinary fanaticism [chat} took possession of all these sun-worshippers:'
As he states: "From chat moment our squalid society rushed, Narcissus tO a
man, ta gaze at its trivial image on a scrap of metal" (in Newhall, 1980: 112).
However, as Helmut Gernsheim remarks, chis craze did not happen without
influencing the new cechnology (Gernsheim, 1969: 234). Even if over the
course of the ninereench century mirrors and other devices of reproduction had
streamed into people's lives, the advent of photography changed the most
radically the way people perceived their own appearances. Regarded as truchful
and realistic, photographs materialized the difference beeween idealized images
of oneself and che reality of one's appearance. In her book Hope in a Jar: The
l'rfaking of A merica's Bearay Crdtr/re, Kathy Peiss stresses thac what most vexed the
public during the earLy decades of phocography was chac che photograph
revealed the face and che body with a degree of detail and precision men and
women of the nineteench century were noc used to (Peiss, 1998: 45). As N. P.
14 Ir has ra be remembered chat the length of exposures of the first daguerreorypes did not
allow portraits and several cechnical improvements had co be made before portrait studios could
open their doors co men and women, eager ta be immorcalized by the camera.
15 As Walter Benjamin remarks in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:"
"It is no accident that che portrait was the focal point of eady photography. The cult of
remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the
picture. For the Iast cime the aura emanates from the eady photographs in the fleeting
expression of a human face" (Benjamin, 1936: 226).
16 The introduction of the carce-de-visice format by Frenchman André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri, a
phorographer co che court of Napoleon III, in 1854, concribured co popularize porerair
phocography. As a resulc of ies relative affordability, the new format became a craze overnighc.
Ir needs also ra be noted here thar Disdéri might have been che first theorist of portrait
phocography. In 1862, he published a book on the copic enticled Esthetic of Photography (Freund,
1974: 69).
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Lerebours, one of the most prominent eady French photographie portraitisrs,
writes in his 1873 Traité de Photographie: "The most terrible enemy which the
daguerreocype has to combat is, wirhour contradiction, human vanity" (in
Gernsheim, 1982: 96). Moreover, Lerebours stresses the differences beeween
painting and photography in rerms of cusromers' expectations:
When a porerait is painced, the flatcering hand of the artise knows how tO sofcen the irregular
fearures of the face, tO make graceful a sting pose, and to give an effect of grace and dignity co
the whole. Therein lies che calent of the portraic paimer; one expects a likeness, bur above aIl
one wams te look beauriful - [wo demands which are ofren incomparible. Ir is not rhus with
rhe photographic arrise: unable tO correct the imperfections of nature, his portraits unforrunarely
often have the faulr of portraying the sitter tOo truthfully; chey are in a way permanent mirrors
where vaniry does noc always find what ie wanrs (in Gernsheim, 1982: 96).
Reporredly, sorne cusromers would leave rhe phocographer's studio when chey
felt that the accuracy of the phocograph happened to be tOO painful (Peiss, 1998:
46). The public, accustomed to the idealized and flarrering portraits of painrers,
expecred photographers co conform tO the embellishing practices of the arrists
and as a resulr, clients would ask for retouched or tinted pictures 17 which
rended co lessen the gap beeween self-image and the pictorial troth, offering a
more pleasing likeness (Peiss, 1998: 45). This type of demand favored the
talbotype, also known as calotype, which offered advantages over the more
recognized daguerreotype with respect tO its application ta portraiture. An
article published in Austria even specifically promoted the ralbocype's ability ta
improve the artistic effects of pictures by "roning down or removing anything
unanractive, like wrinkles, which may have been reproduced with tao great
accuracy" (in Gernsheim 1969: 466). As Susan Soneag remarks: "The news that
the camera could lie made getting photographed much more popular" (Sontag,
1973: 86). Even if photographers first complained about their customers'
demands 18, they quickly integrated retouching techniques into their practices
(Gernsheim, 1969: 466). As a cesule, retouching became a cornmon practice for
photographers, an inherent parc of the art of portrait phoeography, and they
became a "curious hybrid of painrer-phorographer" (Gernsheim, 1969: 234).
17 Tinced photOgraphs have a single overaIl color resuleing from rhe addition of dyes co rhe
photOgraphic materials by a commercial manufacturer. They do not require che phocographer's
manipulation contrarily tO hand-colored photographs (Baldwin, 1991: 80).
18 It needs co be noced rhat most photOgraphers found the practice "deresrable and cosrly" co
quore Gaspard Félix Toumachon, becrer known as Nadar, one of the most famous porrrairists of
the nineteenrh cencury (in Newhall, 1982: 70).
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Technically, they would interfere manllally with the negative or the prinr tO
··beautify" their clients, removing blemishes and adding balance to the porerait
CGernsheim, 1969: 234). Aspiring to conform to the Victorian ideal of beauty
rrends of the 1850s, photographers were lead to follow carefully determined
recommendations. The Photographie Ne-ws magazine sllggested the following
instructions ra achieve che perfect picrure:
(For women). A handsome face is of an oval shape, both front view and in profile. The nose
slightly prominent in the center, with small, well-rounded end, fine nostrils; small, full,
projecting lips, the upper one short and curved upwards in the center, the lower one slightly
hanging down in the center, both turned up a litde at the corners, and receding inside; chin
round and small; very small, low cheek-bones, not perceptibly rising above the general
rotundicy. Eyes large, inclined upwards ac the inner angles, downwards ac outer angles; upper
eyeiids long, forehead round, smooth and small; hair racher profuse. Of aH chings, do noc
draw the hair over che forehead if weH formed, but rather up and away. See the Venus de
Medici, and for comparison see also Canova's Venus, in which latter che hair is coo broad.
(For men). An inceHeccual head has che forehead and chin projeccing; bottom lip projecting a
lictle; eyebrows racher near together and low (raised eyebrows indicace weakness). Broad
forehead, overhanging eyeiids, sometimes cutting across the iris co the pupil. (in Gernsheim,
1969: 235).
Women's waists were left to the photographer's good will and aeschetic
judgment: "The retoucher may slice off, or curve the lady's waisr after his own
idea of shape and form and size" (Gern5heim, 1969: 235). Dororhy Wilding,
an influential studio portraitist in Bricain, was active in London from 1914 to
the lare 19505. Trained as a recoucher, she recalls in her 1955 autobiography ln
Purs/tit of Perfection, her views on recouching and tries co correct the impression
sorne people might have that the enhancing technique is about making the sitter
better looking than s/he is in real life: "It isn't chat at aIl. It's more to make a
portrait a fairer represencation of a sitter chan it would be if a negacive were left
alone" (Wilding, 1955: 125). However, according tO Gernsheim, purists will
always abject ro retouching since it represents an Uinjudicious mixture of rwo
diamecrically opposed artiscic media" (Gernsheim, 1969: 164).
Anocher similar technique co disguise physical uf1.aws" chat has been
used for decades by skilled professionals, especially in the area of advercising,
is airbrushing, This cechnique is based on a mechanical brush chat uses no
brisdes co apply the paint, but inscead, compressed air which is forced chrough
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a fine nozzle to break up the paint into an ultra fine mist. This mist, which can
be broad or fine, is then directecl to an exact location on the photographe Thanks
to airbrushing an arrist can carefully "paint" a light tone co reduce a dark area
and conversely use a clarker pigment to cover a lighter tone. This technique
gives arrists the most control and allows them to produce textures that are
difficult to obtain by conventional methods. AlI work is done on a work print,
not on the original as it is considered very risky to work on any original princ.
PHOTOGRAPHIC TRICKS
In addition to retouching, it is worth noting that early photographic history is
filled with examples of cechnical tricks made possible by the camera co aIrer
representation of reality. Double exposures, "spirit photographs," double
printings and others were enthusiastically described in popular nineteenthcentury
books on «photographic amusements" (Ades, 1986: 7). In the first half
of this century for instance, April Foors photographie fakes were popular with
the public and in the 1920s and 1930s, alterecl photographs were enjoyed for
their humor or sensationalism (Lovell, 1997: HREF). In his book, Hoaxes,
Curtis MacDougall examines different types of doctored photographs and
discusses examples of images of giant sea creatures or Viking ships that were
published in the print media. Photographs have ofcen been used tO show
evidence of paranormal phenomena relying on the helief people have thac "the
camera never lies." The Cocringley Fairies are a famous example. In 1917, [Wo
young girls produced photographs of fairies (see figure 6). Several
photography experts declared that the pictures had not been doctored and the
girls were supported in their daims by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a fervent
believer in the occult. The crick was finalLy admined and was much simpler
than anything speculated: Elsie Wright and her cousin Frances Griffith had jusc
posed with paper cut-outS held in place by hat pins (Farquhar, 1996: HREF).
Another technical tricks made possible by the camera's properties are double
exposures, which are the result of a second exposure in a camera of a negative.
This produces a combination of ewo images in a single print from the same
negative (Baldwin, 1991: 40). This artifact gave birth to the curious
photographic genre of spirit photography which was believed tO capture on film
the likeness of a deceased person (see figure 7). Even though these photographs
37

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Unknown Photographer. Alice and the FairitI. Brothercon Collection. Leeds University Library.
7. Spirit photography:
Unknown photOgraphec-o Rtv~d Tweedle and Spirits. Photography Collection. Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center. The University ofTexas at Austin.

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were only the products of a technical artifact, many people believed in their
truthfulness given the automatic characeeriscic of the camera. It is interesting to
note that even coday, the use of che camera as evidence of supernaeural events,
such as UFOs for examples, is still very popular and regulady, specialises are
asked tO dismiss these visual "proofs.··
"DARKROOM MAGIC"
As Fred Riechin, a former picture edieor for The New York Times j\lf.agazine who
wrires extensively on issues of documentary and digital phocography, explains
in his essay "Photojournalism in the Age of Compurers," anocher effective
method of manipulation that has been practiced from che beginnings of
photography occurs in the form of pasting together different photographs and
then reshooting the obtained picture, making the new image look like an
original and leaving the negative untouched (Ritchin, 1990: 29). This rechnique,
known as "combinaeion print," was casually practiced to compensate ehe
limitations of the early technology. The first emulsions indeed, did noc allow
photographers to shoot simultaneously the sky and the landscape 19 . Therefore,
[wo pictures were taken and the [wo negacives were lacer combined into a single
print in the darkroom. Parisian photographer Gustave Le Gray used this method
to produce his famous seascapes and, according ta Mark Haworth-Booch, curatar
of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Londo'n, Camille Silvy
creaeed his 1858 River Seene using the same technique (in Meyer, HREF, see also
figure 8). However, very quickly combination prints were made not only to
redeem the initial rechnical restrictions of the medium, but also to create one's
own images. It is important to undersrand ehat at this poine the daim of the
truth effect of photography was greatly challenged, the combination print
techniques allowing the camera to become a tool for artistic expression, and not
just a tool of neurral representation. This daim of the creative nature of
photography brought up one of the central debates in the history of
photography; the areistic use totally confliceing wich the "objective" nacure of
the phocograph. Many skilled and talenred arrists used chis technique to create
19 As Beaumont Newhall explains: "The silver iodide emulsions of che cime were sensicive only
co che blue rays of che speccrum and chose char: lay beyond. Ic was impossible ra phocograph
objects char: only red or green: a very bright red fiag wich a green cross upon ic appeared cotatly
black in a prine" (1982: 73). As a resule, landscapes wich skies were an almosc impossible
challenge.
39

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8. Combinacion peints;
Gustave le Gray. The G~f Wave - Ctfle. 1856. Combination albumen prim. Collection Paul F. Walter. New
York; on extended Ican to The Museum ofModem Arr, New York.
Camille Silvy. Ritrr:r Sane, France. 1858. Gold-tonec1 albumen prim from [wo wec collodion-on-glass negatives.

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their own, sometimes fantasized, representations of reality, notably with
composites. Henry Peach Robinson, an eady practitioner of the technique,
described the combination print process as:
A mechod which enables che phocographer co represenc objeccs in differenc planes in proper
forms, co keep che crue acmospheric and linear relation of varying discances, and by which a
piccure can be divided into separate portions for execucion, che parts to be afcerwards printed
cogether on one paper, chus enabling the operacor tO devoce all his accention to a single figure or
sub-group ac a cime, so thac if any parr: be imperfecc from any cause, ic can be substiruced by
anocher withouc che !oss of the whole picrure, as would be che case if taken ac one operation (in
Mitchell, 1992: 163-4).
Probably one of the most acclaimed perpetrators of this technique 2l is Oscar
Gustave Rejlander who made elaborate compositions with several negatives,
carrying the process ta an extreme, in the 1860s. His controversial The Two
Ways of Lift of 1857 (see figure 9), for instance, was a montage of thirty
different negatives that took him six weeks to complete (Newhall, 1982: 74).
In his essay <CBeyond reality: art photography," photography historian Marc
Mélon uses the term ,udemechanized' photography" to qualify Rejlander's work
and discusses the consequences of the manipulation of the photographie image:
Photography was a medium chae was oecognized ra offer a faithful poreraic of che worLd. To
manipulace a photograph, recouch ic and cake ic aparc, in order co reconsticuce ic in an order
acknowledged tO be artificiaI, was tantamount ra manipulating che world ieself and co
dominacing ics disorder. The cask of eaking reality apart and reassembling figures within che
world of che image could be compared to che cask of che moral law, which separates good from
evil and saves che world by imposing a new order upon it (Mélon, 1986: 82).
Apparently, Rejlander may have realized this, or might have simply been
discouraged by too much criticism, and denounced the combination print process
in a letter ta Robinson, allegedly writing that he was <Ctired of photography for
the public, particulady composite photos, for there calI be no gain and there is
no honour only cavil and misrepresentation" (in Newhall, 1982: 76).
Neverrheless, the principle of the composite image was never abandoned since
:!) Ocher prominenc arriscs who used the principle include notably Henry Peach Robinson who
firsc became famous wich his Fading Away, a combinacion print showing a dying young woman
with her parent grieving (see figure 9), buc also Bricish phocographer David Occavious Hill
(1802-1870) who produced many collages or John Morrissey who used an even simpler mechod
co conscruct his composite picrures, simply rephotographing ready-made piccures chac he would
firsc eut out and paste together againsc a specially prepared background (Ades, 1986: 7).
41
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• 9. Oscar Guscave Rejlander-. The Two Ways of Life. 1857. Combinac:ion albumen prine:. The Royal Phocographie

Sociec:y. Bac:h. England.

9. Henry Peach Robinson. Fading Au~. 1858. Combinacion albumen prinr. George Eascman House. Rochescer. N.Y:

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chat cime. Therefore, in a sense, it can be considered as the core of photomanipulation
as weU as the pcecursor of digital imaging in terms of its "cut
and paste" principle 21 • In the 1920s, the process, even though its intent and
results differ radicaIly from Rejlander's and Robinson's, was revived under the
label "photomontage." This approach was used with infinice variations by
constructivists, surrealists, dadaïsts, and futurists. It is best exemplified by the
work of artists such as Lazlo Mohoiy-Nagy, Christian Schad, Alexander
Rodcchenko, Man Ray, and especiaLly John Heartfield (1891-1968) who used
photomontages to criticize Nazi Germany in the 1930s (for examples of these
arrists' work see figure 10). Photomontages implicitly meant that photography
is a social construction that one cannot and should not rely on blindly.
It needs also ro be noced here that in the 1960s, various artists aIso used
the camera and the combination print technique in an effort co dismantle the
truth effect of the photograph. One precursor for this use of the camera was
Frenchman Yes Klein who, in 1960, conceived a photograph, entitled The Leap
into the Void, which shows the arrist diving out of a second-story window (see
figure Il). The photograph was forged and yet it presented the event as if it had
really happened, as if it were real. Following Klein's path, many
photographers, such as John Bulldozer or Robert Chumming, explored notions
of perception and vision, creating explicitly false illusions for the camera 22 •
Another photographer known for his use of combination printing is so-called
··master of the composite image" American Jerry Uelsmann who significandy
refers to the photomontage technique as "post-visualization" because for him
··the moment of creativity does noc take place the instant the shutter of the
camera is released, but rather later - in the darkroom" (Uelsmann: HREF).
As Newhall states "Uelsmann combines disparate images to produce strange,
often disquieting and ambivalent compositions such as the face/fist in Symbo/îc
Mutations (see figure 12 and Newhall, 1982: 288). However, it needs co be
pointed chat the work of these arrists present us with more than a simple
true/false dichotomy. Their work seeks to create realities that are more
meaningful than the one literally given to the eye and if one considet:. for
instance HeartfieLd's photomontages of Hitler, one can realize chac in their
21 The "cut and pasre" principle, perhaps one of the most important characteristics of the
computer age, allows che user tO select data from a text, an image or even a video, to copy je
and pasce je in anocher documenc. AH this in a matcers of seconds.
22 For a more in-depth examinacion of chis issue, l direct the rcader co Graham Clarke's chaprer
encided "The Phocograph Manipulaced" in his book The Photograph (pp. 187-206).
43
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"THE NOEME" OR THE REFERENTIAL QUALITY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Moreover, as it is argued by David Tomas, "special posItIOn of photography in
our culture is predicated on a unique form of contiguous, causal link thac unites
the photography with its referent" (Tomas 1988: 148). Put simply: a
photograph is always a photograph of something, a physicai presence, the
referent. As a result, photographs are believed to be more realistic than other
representations of reality based on observation, such as drawing or painting,
since these latter do not necessarily imply a referent (Price and Wells, 1997:
42). Roland Barthes writes extensively about the referential characteristic of the
medium in his 1961 essay UThe Photographic Message" and in his Iast book
devoted entirely to photography, Camera Lllcida. In "The Photographic
Message," he observes that the photograph transmits uthe scene itseIf, the
literaI reality" and even though "the image is not the reality" Slnce the
photograph is reduced and one-dimensional, it is nonetheless the "perfect
analogon" of che object or person represenred, the referent (Barthes, 1977: 17).
In Camera LlIcida, the author develops his definition and writes:
l caU "photographie referent" not che optionally rea1 ching co whieh an image or a sign refers
buc che necessarily rea1 ching which has been placed before che lens. wichouc whieh chere would be
no phocograph. Painting ean feign realicy wichouc having seen ic. Discourse signs which have
referencs, of course, but chese referencs can be and are mosc often ··chimeras." Concraey co these
imitations. in Phocography l can never deny chac the thing has heen there. There is a
superimposicion here: of realicy and of che pasc. (Barthes, 1981 : 76).
For Barthes, the referent IS fundamental to photography; it is the ·'founding
order of Phocography" (Barthes, 1981: 77). Unlike other means of
representation, photography cannoc be achieved through memory: the referent
has tO be there when che phocograph is taken, it has to be uabsolutely,
irrefutably present" (Barthes, 1981: 77). For Barthes, the constrainr: of che
referent is specific co photography and he refers tO it as its noeme. Another
photography theorist who stresses the referential properties of the photographic
medium is Susan Sontag. In her book On Photography, she wrires: "A phocograph
passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may
distort; but there is always a presumption that something exists or did exisc,
which is like what's in the picture" (Sontag, 1973: 5). In a more metaphorical
25

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way she reiterates her idea of che referent later on in her book, writing the
following: .•A photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an
interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the
real, like a foocprint or a death mask" (Sontag, 1973: 154).
As we shaH see later, the theory of a fundamental existence of a referent, even
though only parrially true in the wodd of analog phorography, might be the
most radically challenged foundation of photographic truth in the digital
world.
THE TRADITION OF DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY
Ali previous crimes of the Rlissian empire had been committed linder the caver of a disereet shadow. The
deportation of a million Lithlianians, the murder of hundreds of thollsands of Poles, the /iqliidation of the
Crimean Tatars remain in olir memory, bllt no photographie doclimentation exisrs; sooner or later they will
therefôre be proc!aimed as fabrications. Not so the 1968 invasion of Czeehoslovakia, of whieh both stills
and motion pia/Ires are stored in archives throughout the world.
- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984.
Anocher reason for che uncondicional modernisc belief in the impartial eye of
the camera is based on the long cradition of genres of straighc, realistic or
documentary photography. If I am weIl aware that these genres have specific
styles, forms, practices and history, for the purpose of simplicity and claricy, I
shaH consider a loose, elemencary definicion: phorographs which meec the
minimal condicion of documentary are chose who provide the viewer with "an
account of events chat have their own existence outside the frame of the
photograph or che confines of che studio waIls" (Price, 1997: 101);
photographs that are free of retouching and manipulation. Documencary
phorography gives information about the

PHOTO-MANIPULATION AND POLITICS

Nevertheless, as we have seen in the first chapter, poIitical institutions helped
develop the belief that photography was offering a faithful representation of
reality. Once this belief had been ingested by the masses and the Faith in the
photographic image was near absolute, the medium became a powerful
instrument of propaganda in the hands of cotalitarian governments. As John
Berger wrires in Abo/tt Looking: "The very ·truthfulness' of the medium
encouraged its deliberate use as a means of propaganda" (Berger 1980: 52-3).
As historians have revealed, old manner manipulations have been
casually used in the past to retouch, cut out or rearrange politicians tO conform
the political agenda of the time and place23 • However, many examples of
doctored political photographs come from Soviet propaganda. Back then,
techniques of retouching were performed not only to enhance the appearance of
the counrry's leaders, but also, more importantly, to "erase" someone's
existence from history24. The rnost famous example of this kind of "Stalinist
recouching" rnight be the historical shot of Lenin's May 5, 1920 address to the
troops. In the original photograph, Lenin addresses the soldiers from a wooden
podium while Trotsky and Kamenev stand on the right of the podium. Later,
under Stalin's regime, the picture was reissued with a bit of retouching and
without the (wo conspicuous figures (see figure 13). Stalin did not want to have
Trotsky associated with the Bolshevik revolution, so he "rewrore history with n

a brush and ink (King, 1997: 66-73). The same technique was used tO get rid of
Gregory Nelyubov, one of the nation's earliest cosmonaut trainees, from
23 For examples of falsifications of political phocographs, l recommend Alain Jauberc's
remarkable Making People Disappear: An Amazing Chronicle of Photographie Deception (Mclean,
VA: Pergamon-Brassey International Defense Publishers, 1989), in which techniques of
photographic manipulation of histOrical records are described and David King's The Commissar
Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's RlIssia (New York: Metropolitan
Books, 1997), which focuses on the practices of "the Kremlin airbrushers" under Stulin.
24 If this technique is common tO phocography, it is inceresting co note that the idea of erasing
or adding people co "rewrite" hiscory has always been around, long before the appearance of the
camera. In anciem: Rome for instance, the parallel desire tO efface the trace of a person's
existence from history was called a damnation memoriae. In a similar spirit, Jacques-louis
David's famous 1805 painting The Coronation of Napoleon, fearures, at the request of the
emperor, people who did not attend the ceremony.
46

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• 13. Reeouching:

Unknown phoeographer. Lozin's addresr to a crou:d, May 5, 1920. 1920. Beroee and afrer reeouching.

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official records. Nelyubov had his face smudged and cropped out, and was
completely erased from ail space shots and group shots in 1961, after he had a
run-in with the police. SimilarLy, twency years later, when the Soviet Un;on
wanted to downplay the military's role ln the Soviet space program, they
eliminated Soviet missile chief Charlie S. Moskalenko from a photograph
immortalising the first launch of man into space, in which he originally
appeared in military attire beeween cosmonaut Yore Gagarin and rocket expert
Sergei Korolev (Lift, 1986: 67-8). Alexander Dubcek, Czech Prime Miniscer
and progressive leader of a "communism with a human face;' received the same
fate. He "vanished" from a photograph showing him with President Svoboda in
front of Saint Virus Church in Prague, after the Soviets had crushed his attempt
at reform in 1968 (Rodgers, 1998: 114).
As a matter of fact, policical regimes have made people disappear from
phocographs for years and almost every dictatorship has used the possibilities
offered by the photographic medium to doctor or falsify pictures for
propaganda purposes. However, doctoring of phorographs is unforrunately not
the priviLege of totalicarian regimes and photo forgery was performed in "free"
countdes as weIl. Even though chis is less documenred, ewo political examples
are often cited. The first involves a 1928 campaign picture of Herbert Hoover
and his mnning mate which was faked because Hoover refused to pose with the
vice-presidencial candidate. The other weLL publicised case dates from the
McCarthy era. In 1951, Maryland Democrat Senator 1-Gllard Tidings lost his
seat after a composite showing him apparently conferring with Earl Browser, a
head of the US Communist Party was published in Life (see figure 14).
MESSAGE WITHOUT A CODE?
This latter incident is rnentioned and cornrnented on by Roland Barthes in the
section of his essay "The Photographic Message" devored co manipulated
phorographs, or what he caUs "trick photography25 "and gives him the
opporruniry co determine the issues brought up by such processes. In this 1961
essay, Barthes examines the particular genre of pteSS phorography and attempts
25 Barthes wrices the following regarding the composice: "Tricks effects. A photOgraph given
wide circulation in the American press in 1951 is reputed to have cast Senator Millard Tydings
his seac; ic showed the Senator in conversation with the Communist leader Earl Browder. In fact
the photograph had been faked, created by the artificial bringing together of the [Wo faces"
(Barthes, 1961: 21).
•
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• 14. "US Senator Millard Tydings {right} and communisr leader Earl Browder (1eft)." 1951. Composite. Published

in Life. APlWide World Repores.

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tO establish a "structural analysis of the photographic message" (Barthes, 1977:
16). For the French cultural criticlsemiologist/structuralist/postscructuralist,
the photographie image "is a message without a code"; the only structure of
information "that is exclusively constituted and oceupied by a 'denoced'
message" (Barthes, 1977: 17-8). However, as he first defines the structure of
the photographic message as independent of the text and then discusses their
interrelation Barthes reaches a somehow more complex answer.
In the section entitLed "The photographie paradox," Barthes stresses
photographs' ewo levels of meaning: the denotative and the connotative, an
important distinction in semiology. While denotation relates to that which is
"objectively" present in a sign, connotation is the meaning beyond the
denotated, literaI signe As we have seen eadier, what Barthes caUs the analogon
of photography is the perfect representation of the object or persan
photographed, the referent. This pe::fect representation, the analogon, is the
"denoced" aspect of the message or che non-coded aspect of che photographie
meaning. However, photographs have also a "connoted" message which is "che
manner in which the society, ta a certain extent, communicaces what it chinks of
it" (Barthes, 1961: 17). Put simply, connotation relates tO che cultural meaning
which influences our reading of a photographe According to Barthes, this
dimension of meaning is not natural, but rather determined culturally,
historically and ideologically. Furrhermore, connotation implies interpretation,
and the interpretation depends on the context in which the denoted signs appears.
As Barthes sums it up: "The photographic paradox can be seen as the coexistence
of (wo messages, the one without a code (the photographic analogue),
the other with a code (the 'arr,' or the treatment, or the 'writing', or the
rhetoric, of the photograph)" (Barthes, 1977: 19). In this text Barthes also
identifies six ways to impose connocative meaning upon a phocograph: trick
effeccs, pose, objeccs, photogenie, aestheticism, and syncax, which he caUs
"connotation procedures" (Barthes, 1961: 20). What inrerests Barthes in trick
effecrs, is the fact that they "intervene withouc warning in the plane of
denocation; chey utilise the special credibility of the photograph - this, as was
seen, being simply its excepcional power of denotation - in order to pass off
as merely denoted a message which is in reality heavily connoced; in no other
treatment does connotation assume 50 complecely the 'objective' mask of
denotation" (Barthes, 1961: 21). Manipulating a photograph therefore changes
50

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the connotative aspect of a photograph. Barthes explains the Lift composite in
the following way:
Naturally, signification is only possible tO the exrent that there is a stock of signs, the
beginnings of a code. The signifier here is the conversational attitude of the ewo figures and it
will be noted that this attitude becomes a sign only for a certain society, only given certain
values. What makes the speaker's attitude the sign of a reprehensible familiariry is the tetchy
anti-Communism of the American electorare; which is tO say that the code of connotation is
neither arrificial (as in a true language) nor natural, but hiscorical (Barthes, 1961: 21-2).
However, as Barthes further explains in "The Photographic Message," another
way to alter che meaning of a phocograph has to do with the use of text.
According to him, words come to "sublimate, pacheticize, or rationalise the
image" and text "loads the image" (Barthes, 1977: 25-6). In addition, Barthes
observes that the effect of connotation varies with the distance of the cext ta the
image: the doser words are to the image, the less they seem to connote it
(Barthes, 1977: 26).
Text is an important component of a photograph since it is what gives the image
most of its meaning, helping us comprehend what ic depicts. Thecefore, even
though Barthes scarred by emphasising the assertion chat a photograph is an
encoded message, we can understand how connotative value is inescapable 35 .
For Barthes, the capacity co underscand a photograph's connotative value is
based on "the reader's <knowledge' juSt as though it were a matrer of a real
language"; and it will be '<intelligible only if one has learned the signs"
(Barthes, 1977: 28). Furrhermre, given their purely denotative value,
photographs' content can be drastically "rewritten." This versatile aspect of
photographs is conveniently used by tabloids. For instance, a snapshot of a star
mourning at a funeral, taken out of context and associated wich an appropriate
caption or commentary can become the visual proof chat the scar is in an
unhappy relacionship. On a more serious note, an exhibition in Paris, several
years ago, demonscrated that point, showing thirty photographs from the First
World War that had been (falsely) labelled and identified as documents from
the Iran-Iraq war. None of the thousands of people who visired this exhibition
questioned the images. The trick was only revealed in the last show eoom,
35 Barthes conc1uded his essay noting that pure denotation" in the photograph exists only on
M

the leve! of the traumatic image. In Camera Lllcida, Barthes rerains his concept of the traumatic
image, but cransforms his earlier terms "denotation" and "connotation" inca the cerms
"punctum" and ··studium."
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where explanations on the different manipulations used were affered (Cajole,
1998: 26). In her book Photography and Society, Gisèle Freund examines severa!
similar cases which happened in the French media in the sixties and seventies
and daims that "the objectivity of the photograph is only an illusion. The
captions ta the image can change totally its signification" (Freund, 1974: 153).
The importance of the caption has a!so been pointed out by Walter Benjamin. In
his "A Short History of Photography," he predicced with a great vision its
weight when he wondered: "Will not captions become the essential components
of pictures?" (in Mitchell, 1992: 192). Mareover, as he writes in "The Work
of Art in the Age of Meehanieal Reproduction:"
For che firsc time, captions have become obligatory. And ic is c1ear chac they have an altogecher
differenc character than the cide of a painting. The directives which the capcions give co those
looking at pictures in illustrared magazines soon become even more explicit and more
imperacive in the film where the meaning of each single piccure appears tO be prescribed by che
sequence of aIl preceding ones (Benjamin, 1936: 226).
Therefore, photographie images are not as removed from wrirren texts as is
often thought!7 . Text, is essential to understand the content and the message of
photographs.
DECONSTRUCTING DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY
Et/en the photo that most closely fit/fils the conventions of standard reafism is a "reasonable facsimile" of
what the eye might haVI! sem.
- Kroker and Weinstein, Data Trash. 1994.
Even photographs which make direct daims to documenrary truth are always
eonstrucced by the photographer to creare symbolic images that can "provoke"
viewers' interest. Many concemporary critics have exposed the construction
behind doeumentary photographers' work. A good example of this is Dorothea
Lange's (1895-1965) famous photograph, Migrant Mother (see figure 15). Taken
in March 1936, in Nipomo, California, the phatagraph is a porerait of a thirtytwo-
year-oid woman, Florence Thompson, and her children shelrered under a
tent in a eamp of migrant pea pickers, which, as it has been often noted, bears
striking resemblance to a Madonna-with-child image. Over the years this image
zr Roland Barthes, in his book on che semiocics of fashion, Système de la mode, also wrires about
the significance of che capcion (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983).
52

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• 15. Seleccing/cropping:

Dorothea Lange. Migrant Mother, Nipomo, Califlrnia. 1936. Gelarin-silver prim. The Museum of Modern Arr.
New York.

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• 16. AU: Dorothea Lange. MMigrant agriculcural worker's family. Seven children withouc food. Mocher aged 32.

facher is a nacive Californian. Match 1936." Library of Congress. Washingcon. D.C.

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has become an icon of the Great Depression era 28 and one of the most
reproduced in the wodd. However~ sorne have argued that Lange's celebrared
photograph had been carefully conscructed in arder to achieve a result that
would cornply with the FSA Project ideology. In Mind's Eye, Mind's Trrlth: F5A
Photography ReconIÎdered~ hiscorian James Curtis demonstrates how the enduring
image was composed. According to him, "Lange did not arrive at this final
composition by accident (...} but by patient expecimentation with vacious
poses29 ." To prove this, Curtis exposes the five other shots taken by Lange the
same clay and considers that the most well-known of them is actually the last of
the series (see figure 16). This reveals an explicit political and ideological
agenda behind the choice made to single out a pacricular pîcture.
Another highly controversial photograph is Associated Press J oe Rosenthal's
1945 Raising the flag on Iwo Jiwa (see figure 17). This photograph, which shows
a groups of marines erecting a D.S. flag on a Japanese island aftec theic victory,
is also one of the most reproduced in the world and earned its author a
Pulitzec's Pcice. Despite these impressive achievements, sorne have chaUenged
the authenticiry of the image dairning that it had been posed foc the camera30
(Mitchell, 1992: 42). It has co be nored here that "restaging 31 ,. has been at the
centec of a numbec of controversies. Based on such daims, the vecaciry of a lot
of war phocographs foc instance has been challenged.
Documentary photographer Lewis Wickes Hine, in his essay "Social
Phorography," discusses the ambivalence of the photographic image. For Hine,
28 In 1972, Roy Stryker, the head of the FSA Projecc, described che piccure in che following
rerms: "When Dor'ochea cook that picrure, that was the ultimare. She never surpassed ic. To me,
ic was the piccure of Farm Securicy" (in RosIer, 1989: 315).
'Z-) In a 1960 essay for Pop/dar Photography enrided "The Assignmenr r11 Never Forgec," Lange
gave the fo11owing accOunt of che experience: "1 saw and approached the hungry and despernre
mocher, as if drnwn by a magnet. l do noc remember how l explained my presence or my
camera co her, but l do remember she asked no questions. l made five exposures, working
doser and doser from che same direction. l did noc ask her name or her hiscory. She cold me
her age, chac she was chircy-rwo. She said chac they had been living on frozen vegerables from
the surrounding fields, and birds thac che children killed. She had jusc sold the cires from her
car to buy food. There she sac in chat lean- co cenc wich her children huddled around her, and
seemed co know chat my pictures rnighc help her, and so she helped me. There was a sorc of
equality abouc ic" (in Newhall, 1980: 262-5).
30 However, ic is worch noting that according ra Paul Martin Lester, "che confusion over che
authenricicy of che famous photograph" is based on che facc that chere was anocher shoc of che
evenc, featuring the soldiers "smiling and waving for che camera under the same flag.·· When a
reporcer asked Rosenrhal if che image was posed, che phocographer, chinking that he was
referring co chis other shoc, (cao) casually admicted 'chat it was and lacer confirmed chac che
famous phoc:ograph was genuine (Lester, 1988: HREF).
31 Rescaging is che accion of re-creating a sicuation or an evenc chac accua11y happened for che
camera.
55

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• 17_Sraging:

Joe RosenrhaL Raising the Flag wu lu/o Ji"ra. 1945. Library of Congress. WashingtOn, D.C.

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on the one hand, "the average person believes implicitly chat the photograph
cannot falsify" because it "has an added realism of ics own," "an inherent
attraction not found in other forms of illustration." However, on the other
hand, we should be aware that our "unbounded faith in che integrity of the
photograph is often rodely shaken, for, while photographs may not lie, liars
may photograph." As Hine remarks: "It becomes necessary, then, in our
revelation of the troth, tO see to it thac the camera we depend upon conrracts no
bad habits" (in Stange, 1989: 86). As a result of these discussions on the
realistic nature of documentary photography, later photographers, such as
Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank with his series The Americans, a
documentary of the United Stares published in 1959, began to acknowledge
personal expression as part of their projects. In 1966, Lift magazine challenged
photographie "truth" in regard of the role of the photographer in "making"
pictures, norably quoting from novelist and critie James Agree: " ... It is
doubtful whether most people realize how extraordinarily slippery a liar the
camera is. The camera is juSt a machine, which records with impressive and as a
role very cruel faithfulness precisely what is in the eye, mind, spirit and skill
of its operacor to make its record" (Lift, 1966: 7). The editors chen noted that
"the image reflects the man who snatches it" and recognized that it is "entirely
possible for a skilled photographer to twist troth to his liking."
As André Rouillé writes in the conclusion of A History of Photography:
Social and Cultural Perspectives: "We can see the erosion of the myth of the
phocographer-reporrer devoced co the ideal of represencing the unvarnished
croth, even at the cost of his life [...} Press phocography which used tO claim to
be a way of knowing the world and life, can now be seen for what it is: a source
of illusory, subjective, sometimes misleading images [...} As the photographic
image increasingly reveals itself co be not so much a crue copy of reality but a
metaphor of it, documentary phocography and arc phocography cease co be
considered irreconcilable" (Rouillé, 1987: 255-6).
In this regard, the work of Mexican "craditional photographer 32 and
digital-age dialectician" Pedro Meyer is interesting. In his collection of
digitally-altered photographs entitled Truths & Fictions, he caUs into question
the photographic image as documentary truth. Moreover, he shows photographs
32 Meyer's first CD-ROM compilation, l Pholograph to Remember (1991), was for instance an
example of traditional photojournalism: a collection of black-and-whire pictures of the last year
of his parents' lives (Howonh and Scanlon, 1993: 82).
57

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as the construction they are and reminds the viewers chat photographers are
stocyrellers and they should not tlUSt their eyes (Rosenberg, 1995: HREF). For
Baudrillard, Meyer's work would be a perfect example of his notion of
"simulation" since his images mlmlC the real without trying to replace it. As
Meyer explains in his book Truth & Fictions: "AH my images are about
documenting experiences - not fabricacing them" (Meyer and Fontcuberta.
1995: 108). Furthermore. he argues thac the fact chac his images are digital
"doesn'c make them any less truthful chan documentary photographs of the
past" (Howorth and Scanlon, 1993: 82). As the Licerature describing his 1993
exhibition states: "Meyer has produced a new body of seamless digital photographs
chat are at once documentary fictions and digital truths" (Enyeart: HREF).
CHALLENGING THE AUTOMATIC CHARACTERI5TlC OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Finally, as we have seen in the first chapcer, it has often been argued (Barthes,
Sontag, Cavell, Arnheim) chac the daim for truth of the photographic medium
is directIy Linked co its mechanical aspect. This position has been questioned by
many critics. For instance, Joel Snyder and Neil Walsh Allen argument ln
"Photography, Vision, and Representacion" that the "automatic" character of
photography has been highly exaggerated. As they argue in their essay, even
when no process such as retouching or photographic "trickery" is used,
rechnically the camera offers a wide range of manners to alter the meaning of a
photograph. Any photographer, from the "Sunday snapshooter" to the
professional, "makes a number of characterization" incentionally or not, through
"his choice of equipment and how he uses ir·' (Snyder and Allen, 1975: 150).
As a matter of fact, sorne very efficient ways to alter the message
conveyed by an image, indeed, do not require neirher darkroom work, nor a
computer: the simple selection of an image amongst the many at the disposition
of photo editors already impLies subjectiviry as we have seen with the exampLe
of Dorothea Lange's series Migrant Mother. Another efficient way to convey a
different perspectives to viewer can be found through reframing; as David
Shenk points out, "cropping alone is a powerfuL tool" because it edits what we
can see and influences our awareness of a particular event (Shenk, 1997:
HREF). Moreover, photographs' meaning can be a1tered through stage direction
by the phocographer at the shooting stage, the camera position, choice of filters
or by using a different range of lens width. John Henshall explains how lenses
sa

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can affect the final image:
The choice of a wide angle lens exaggeraces perspective and consequently affecrs perception of
the relative sizes of objects in the frame. A long focal length lens makes objects appear doser
together chan chey are. A wide aperture reduces deprh of field to che point where attention can be
direcced tO the in-focus part of the image. A low camera angle accentuaces the stature of subjects.
allowing them to dominate us; a high camera angle enables us co dominace the subjecc
(Henshall, 1998: HREF).
As a result, a close-up on a group of eight or ten persons can either suggest a
crowd or "erase" the crowd around the main person. This technique was used by
Poland's official media in 1979 when che Pope made his first visit (0 the
councry. By focusing on John Paul II and the nuns around him, the
photographers virtually left out of the piccure the hundreds of thousands people
who had gathered around him, diminishing its impact but complying with che
poI.itical directives of the PoI.ish government (Huriet, 1998: HREF). Given
these possibilicies, one has co acknowledge that Berger's statemenc chat
photography "cannot lie because it prints direcdy" seems much less plausible.
FinaIly, ic needs co be poinced out here chat if sorne photographs are
incentionally manipulated co convey a certain message, sometimes mysterious
apparitions, incerpreced as ghosts or other paranormal phenomena, are only the
resulc of phocography arcifacts. The New England Skepcical Society
Encyclopedia of Skepticism and the Paranormal, details many opporrunicies for
mistakes tO be made, should it be by the camera operator, the developer or che
camera manufacturer. For example, one of che most common procedures,
flashback, happens when a flash used is coo bright 50 that the reflected light
creates hazy overexposed areas on che film. The camera cord icself can look like
a streak of light if it falls in fronc of the lens once the picture is developed
(DeAngelis, 1996: HREF). These cechnical tricks also concradicc the purely
mechanical aspect of the camera.
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CHAPTER THREE
PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE DIGITAL AGE
"These copies are exact?"
"Oh, yes."
"So they're legal?"
Sander.r frowned. "Legal in what .ren.re?"
"Weil, a.r evidence, in a court of law... "
"Oh, no," Sander.r .raid. "These taper wOldd never be ~dmi.rsible in a court of law."
"But if they're exact copie.r... "
"[t'.r nothing to do with that. Ail form.r of photographie evidence induding video, are no longer admi-rsible
in court."
"l haven't heard that," l .raid.
"lt hasn't happened yet, " Sanders said. "The case law i-rn't enûrely dear. Bllt it's conâng. Ail photographs
are SIIspeet these days. Because nfjW, with digital .rystems, they can be changed perfict/y. Perfictly."
- Michael Crichton. Rising Sun, 1992.
As nored eadier, misrepresenrarion by phorographs has occurred since the
invenrion of rhe camera: photographers have had opporruniries ro aIrer rheir
images since 1839, and suspicions abour the medium did nor wair the end of rhe
rwentierh century ro develop. However, rhe appearance of digital imaging
rechnology has made manipulation easier, faster, more accessible, more
sysremaric, and more difficult co detect than ever before. According to rhe Wall
Street Journal, in 1989 already, digitally rerouched or altered phorographs
represented 10% of aIl the published color photographs in the United States (in
de Mul, 1997: 45). With this technology, changes can be blended so
convincingly, that even experts have a difficult time distinguishing what is real
from whar has been creared. Moreover, digital imaging allows just about
anyone with a computer, a scanner and/or a digital camera, basic software, and a
little training to manipulate phocographs, making the imagined, real.
Nevercheless, the rnost dramatic change implicated by the technology IS
that computer imagery makes it possible co retouch and synthetize new images
with "lifelike realismn (Reaves, 1987: 23). As a result, the computer can create
photography-like images from scratch, generate images of human beings or
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objects and simulace reality. What are the possible consequences of this
technology? Can ie create problems and whae are the implications in cerms of
phorography's status of a truthful representational mode? These are sorne of the
questions rhis chapter intends to address. However, the firse aspect ro consider
is how the technology got this far.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT IN DIGITAL IMAGING
According tO Andy Darley, the production and manipulation of images by
computer has a shore history (Dadey. 1990: 39). As Dale O'Dell explains in
his article "Computer-manipulated 1magery: 1s ir Photographyr, qualitative
changes in the manipulation of photographie imagery occurred when computers
were introduced in the early 1960s. By the 19705, a small market had developed
for computer-generaeed imagery despite the face that the equipment was slow,
astronomically expensive and as a result only available co a few (O'Dell:
HREF). During the nexr decade however, the amount of compucer-imagery
grew tremendously as did the availabiliry of good, cheaper equipmenr. However,
the technology was not yet affordable to a mass audience and was still intended
for professional and industrial use. For instance. photographic companies such
as Kodak, Canon, and Nikon, developed and starred to market cameras which
recorded images directIy on floppy disks for the professiona! fields of imaging
(Mitchell. 1992: 17-8). The 1990s finaUy allowed the general public to afford
the cechnology that would allow them tO manipulate photographs. Persona!
compucers began to offer the power, speed and memory necessary for imageprocessing
work, whereas software companies launched software with
capabilities previously available only tO image-processing professionals.
The democratization of image processing is perhaps best symbolized by the
introduction of the image-editing software Photoshop, by Adobe. Ficst
developed as Barneyscan XP in the late 1980s by Thomas and John Knoll for
use with a scanner. Adobe bought the rights to the software from the Knolls
and launched Photoshop 1.0 in 1990 (Salgado, 1997: HREF). Today,
Photoshop is the world's best-selling professional image-editing product: the
lacest market share figures confirm the software's dominance: 87.7% for
Windows, 85.2% for Macintosh. Moreover, Photoshop is one of the most
popular pieces of software on the market with a professional version thar coses
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$500 and a consumer version ac $50. Conseantly improved wich new feaeures the
lase version, Photoshop 5.0, was inrroduced in May 1998. Other similar image
manipulations programs include Pixel Paint Professional. Digital Darkroom,
ArcSoft PhotoMontage, and Corel Photo-Paint.
However, it is the introduction, in the 19805, of digital retouching
equipment by companies such as HeU GraphicSysrems, Crosfield and Scitex
Corporation Ltd.33 , that gave newspapers, magazines, and book publishers che
ability tO manipulare photographs that were originally intended co be classic,
documentary accounts of real events (Lesrer: HREF). As a resule, Scitex has
became parr of the routine of art directors' and phoco editors' work and as Brian
Winston remarks in Clai1lling the Real, the word itself has became a synonym
for digital recouching: "The technology for digital image manipulation is
rapidly becoming a fixture in all newspaper and magazine offices. In the Unired
States, the pioneering commercial device's brand-name, 'Scieex,' is a synonym
for the whole process, much like ·hoover.' As a verb it is already a term of art
- 'co scirex,' rneaning to retouch digitally" (Winston, 1995: 5).
Scirex technology allows not only photographic images to be scanned· inco a
compurer to be retouched electronically, but also tO have the final pictures
ready for princing, someching chac saves magazines and newspapers a
considerable arnount of time and money. Nevertheless, once the picture 15
5canned, perfeccion is only a couple of mouse clicks away and photo editors can
track down the subtlest imperfections, thus attaining incredible levels of
flawlessness. If such process can be compared ta the work of the first
retouchers, one has ta realize that the capabilities of digital retouching are far
more sophiscicaced. With chis cechnology, Harrison Ford's facial scar can
disappear on the caver of an issue of Premiere magazine and Jodie Foster can get
her bellybutton moved a full chree inches for a portrait in the pages of che same
magazine. For a Rolling Stone cover, Demi Moore can have aIl traces of facial
haïr, wrinkles and scretch marks removed while losing about an inch from each
hip in the process. Michael Moore can have his nails digitaIly manicured for
the cover of his book The Big One while Saddam Hussein gets his moustache
33 Founded in 1968, Sôtex Corporation Ltd., che most prominenr company involved in the
image-manipulation industty, allows publishers co do their own prepress work, perform color
correction and retouching operations in-house. In che company's words, the campurer-based
image pracessing technalogy offers: "advanced systems running on standard compurers and
dedicated workstat:Ïons far image manipulation and editing (assembly, retouching, airbrushing
and special effects)" (<http://karatpress.com/scitex.htm>, my emphasis).
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digitally trimmed on the Septembee Il, 1990 covee of The New Republic tO
heighten his resemblance to Adolph Hitler. However, alterations can go way
beyond these simple touch-ups: one of the reasons Scitex is weIl known
amongsc piccure editoes, is due co ics ability co create a composite photograph
from cwo images, quickly, efficiently and seamlessly. Once again, if che
principle is similae in natuee co double princings, chere is no comparison
possible in terms of the results one can obtain wich computer generaced images.
However, l shall examine in more depch these differences later in chis chapcer
as l would like first to determine the possibilities of digital imaging and
explain how the eechnology woeks.
Now, at the end of the ewentieth century, che hardware - computees,
scanners, digital cameras, is becoming increasingly affordable and common.
Coupled wich more and more powerful and easy-co-use software, the capture and
editing of visual data is in almost everyone's reach. Whereas just a few years
ago, creating a convincingly altered digital image required the efforts of a
specialist using sophisticated equipment, it now can be easily accomplished by a
hobbYlsc with a home computer (McCarvel, 1995: HREF). Just as personal
computers democratized skills like rypesetting and page design, the last decade
has brought the possibiliry of photo editing onco millions of desktops.
CHARACETRISTICS OF DIGITAL [MAGrNG TECHNOLOGY
Digital manipulation is made possible by first digitizing visual images. This
means tO translate them into a format the computer can handle. This translation
is achieved by scanning the photograph into a computee, a peocess which turns
the image inco an arrangement of thousands oc millions of electI'onic digits,
bettee known as "pixels" (pictuee elements). The paeticular position, tone and
brightness associated with each pixel is then captured as a seeies of digital ones
and zeros, the foemat readable by computers, and this information is scored in
the computer's memory. Anocher method co enter an image into a computer is tO
use a digital camera which captures initially the image in digital form, making
them easier co manipulate.
Once che piccure is stored in digital fo['m in the computer, a pixel (or a geoup
of pixels) can be altered, moved or have its coloe, brightness and othe['
characteristics duplicared, deleted or otherwise manipulated by making the
app['opriate changes co the various ones and zeros ['ep['esenting those
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characreristics. Sections of a photograph can be cloned, and subde details such
as color, conrrast, light, and shadow may be adjusted (McCarvel, 1995:
HREF). With an imaging program such as Adobe Photoshop, the palette of
techniques available to visual crearors te control and modify appearances exists
with a variety that was never 50 powerful, diverse, easy and fast. If a
comprehensive description of the current technology used to aIrer visual images
is beyond the scope of this paper, a general summary of sorne of chis rechnology
may help put relevant issues into context (for an almost complete spectrum of
possible interventions into the photographic image, l direct the reader ta
MitcheU's The Reconfigttred Eye which contains an in-depch analysis of them.).
One of the mosc spectacular techniques made possible on the computer is
known as "object doning." This technique, which is based on imporcing groups
of pixels from one image into anocher image, enables striking compositions
such as transposing Sylvester Stallone and Groucho Marx into the historical
phocograph taken at the end of W orLd War II in Yalta (see figure 18). "Color
cloning," which consists of changing the colot, contrast and brightness of
groups of pixels, is the procedure that was used by Time magazine for their
infamous 1994 cover photo of a severeLy darkened police mug shot of 0.].
Simpson. Moreover, by duplicating groups of pixels within the same image,
advertisers can cover up the facial blemishes of a model or erase undesirable
eLemenrs from a photograph. Such operation was performed for instance by the
New York Post which eLiminated the name of the sponsor, a competitor, on the
placard of a race winner. In addition color cloning aLLows to extend a
photograph above its original limits ("reverse cropping"). Groups of pixels
can aIso be deLeced from an image and replaced with other objects. This process,
similar in ics principle ta Rejlander's and Robinson's double princs, is one of
the most commonly used by photo-editors when they need to create che image
they do not have, without having co make complicared arrangements. For
inscance, when Newsweek wanced a piccure of Rain 1Vf.an stars Tom Cruise and
Duscin Hoffman for a 1989 cover and one was in Hawaii while the other was in
New York, they simply shot the two actors separately and larer combined the
two photographs. The result gave not only the false appearance of a single
cover shot, but also showed a certain chemistry between the ewo stars chat may
or may not have been obcained during a more traditional photographic session.
This technique is usually utilized to create visually appealing illustrations and
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should not be considered as "photographs," but more as photo-illustrations or
"phocoficcion" as sorne calI them. Examples of this process can be found on the
Time cover which featured actor John Travolta apparendy "posing" in front of
the American flag to accompany an article on the movie Primary C%rs (see
figure 19), on another Time cover which showed a picture of a pig's head on top
of a man's body tO illustrate a story on male piggishness, or in the image of
Bill Clinton with his pants down to his ankles Esq/tire carried, to weil, guess
what... (see figure 20). As Trisha Ziff remarks in "Taking Back New Ideas to
the OId Wodd," "the computer is an excellent medium for collage: cut - edit copy
- paste - merge, etc." (Ziff, 1991: 132).
To sum it up. almosc anyching can be accomplished with the righc
"tools," and as a matter of face, changes can be bIended so convincingly, chac it
has became increasingly difficulc to distinguish whae is reaI from what has been
modified - especially since the changes are usually subtle and insidious. If the
naked eye is usually able co discern enough to Iocace the inconsistencies of
manually altered visual images, it is almost impossible co do so with digical
images since the computer can locace the unnatural disparicies berween groups of
pixels, and then automatically "smooth out" and fix these inconsiscencies.
Therefore, digital manipulations are especially difficult co detect for the
untrained eye and, as Fred Ritchin remarks in his essay "The End of
Photography as We Have Known It," we hear "of such manipulations [ ... }
through word of mouth, since publications do not usually broadcast such
modifications" (Rirchin, 1991: 13). This last daim, however, if probably crue
at che cime Ritchin was writing, can be challenged, almosr a decade lacer.
Indeed, it has now become common for magazines to credit the person who
performed the manipulation and to detail it. This IS especially the case for
cover photographs. It has not yer been generalized to every picture - though it
would be inceresring to see in a fashion magazine the list of ail the retouching
performed on che photograph of a model, nexc to che list of che make-up and
cloches worn.
Befoee examining 10 greacer detail the issues involved in the use of
digital imaging, l would like to provide the reader with sorne examples that
have surfaced within the print media; famous examples of photographs that have
been "fixed" to make their composition perfect or adjusced tO match the written
t~"{t.
6S

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18. Object cloning: .
Paul Higdonft--TYT Picrures. "Sylvester 5rallone
and Groucho Marx at Yalra:'
19. ~Lighr! Camera! Action!" ume. 1998.
20. Esqllire. April 1998.

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The headline on the coyer of the National Enqrtirer read: "Battered
Nicole: Photos taken by her sisrer show how 0.]. beat her up." The tabloid
showed the photo of a Nicole Simpson apparently severely beaten up, her
forehead and lefc cheek covered wich blotches and her eyes bloodied and
swollen. However, che smaller type below the picture read: "Sisrer describes
photos seized by cops - computer re-creation." The picrure had been doctored to
achieve the description given by the victim's sister (see figure 21 and Kobré,
1995: HREF). If one can unfortunately expect this kind of action from a
tabloid, what should be said about more "credible and serious" publications
when they adopt similar processes to offe[' an enhanced representation of reality
to thei[' readers?
One of the most notorious examples of image manipulation involving a
reputable magazine is provided by National Geographie. In February 1982 , the
edito['s of the magazine used the beginning Scitex technology to move
elecrronically one of Egypt's g['eat pyramids, bringing its apex inside the
magazine's yellow frame, in an effort to improve the composition. Former
editor Wilbur Garrett argued the decision in a New York Times lette[' to the
editor to point out that the effect would have been the same if the photographer
had moved ove[' a couple of feet. However, twO rnonths later, another
manipulation was performed when the magazine put on its coyer the image of a
Polish man with parr of his hat grafted from a second photograph. These two
incidents, which were widely publicized, were perceived as deceptive by many
disappointed readers who had relied on National Geographie's reputation for
accuracy (see figure 22). As a result, the magazine announced that digital
retouching would not be used in the future and admitted that it got carried away
by the possibilities offered by the new rechnology. A spokesperson fo[' the
monthly declared: "Scirex will never be used again co shift any of the Seven
Wonders of the wodd" (in Winston, 1995: 5).
Almost a decade late[', Time magazine created what might be considered
the biggest ethical controversy in the hist0o/ of digital manipulation with its
1994 caver depicting a severely darkened 0.]. Simpson (see figure 23). The
infamous coyer was perceived as racist and offensive co many Americans, but
for the editors of the magazine it was only meant to be a kind of "visual
dramatization." However, the week after T ime ran the incriminating "photo,,.
Jim Gaines, the managing edico[', apologized for confusing the magazine's
67

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2L. "Barrered Nicole: Pharos raken by heC" sisreC" show how O.J. beae heC" up." Naeional EnquireC". 1995.
22. "Egypr's Deserr of Promise." National Geognphic. February L982, vol. 161 no. 2.
23. "An American Tragedy". O.J. Simpson's mug shor as ir appeared on rhe covec" of ume. June 27, L994.
CrecHt fOL rhe covec" scares: Phoro-illusrnrion by Marc Mahurin.
24. O.J. Simpson's mug shot as taken by che Los Angeles Police Deparrmenr.
25. '"TraiI of Blood". O.J. Simpson's mug shoe as ie appear-ed on rhe coveC" ofNewsUwR. June 27. L994.
Credit foc" rhe coveC" scates: Photo by Los Angeles Police Deparrment.

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audience: "If there was anything wrong with the cover, in my view, it was that
it was not immediately apparent that this was a photo-illustration rather than an
unaltered photograph; to know that, a reader had to turn to our contents page or
see the original mug shot on the opening page of the story" (see figure 24 and
Gaines, 1994: 40). Although Gaines daims that there is a clear difference
between a photograph and a photo-illustration, it is doubtful that the difference
is always obvious tO the Lay public. However, in chis case, the manipulation
was indubicable since the same week anocher magazine, News'Week, utilized the
same mug shoc, but not .rerouched for its coyer (see figure 25).
Anocher nocorious photograph which illuscrates the difference between
photograph and photo-illustration, is the one New York Newsday published of
rival skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan practicing together (see figure
26). The sicuation depicted could not have happened at the time the picture was
taken since practice started on the day the image was published. However,
thanks to electronic imagery che sensacionalist shoc was composed.
Several publications have demonstrated the possibilities offered by che
technology. In 1990 for instance, Newsweek hired R/Greenberg Associates, an
advertising agency co create a photograph of a dinner party which featured
Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump's fiancée Maria Maples, Libya's dictator
Mohammar Khaddafi, the Queen of England, and Elvis Presley (Alter, 1990:
44). Obviously, since Maples was probably scill a toddler when Presley died,
there was no chance chat these people had ever goccen cogecher. Nevertheless,
this was impossible co cell solely from che picture. Every detail was perfect
and the faIse picture produced by the agency was realiscic and could convince
anyone chac the scene had really happened. In 1994, Scientific American deda.red
thac digital technology had subverced che certainty of photograph as evidence
and to praye their poinc, they offered on cheir February caver a "phocograph"
of Abraham Lincoln, arm-in-arm with Marilyn Monroe (see figure 27). Inside,
chey demonscraced how using an off-che-shelf M~cintosh wich easily available
software, they were able co bring together che presidenc, who died in 1865, with
the movie star, who died in 1962 (see figure 28). These two experimencs are
inceresting because they noc only reveal che capacities of digital manipulacion,
buc chey also suggest that the abilicy to discern cruth from fabrication relies
more on what one knows chan on what one sees. As Mitchell notes:
"Increasingly, our capaciry ta sort visual facts from falsehoods will rest on
69
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• 26. -Fire on Ice". New York Newsday. February 16, 1994.

.'
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27. ~Digiral Forgery Cao Creare Phorographie Evidence for Evenrs rhar Never Happenecr. Sâmtif;'; American.
February 1994. vol. 270 no. 2. Computer arr by Jack Harrisl Visual Logie.
28. ~Crearing [he Cover Image". Sdmlific American_ February 1994. voL 270 no. 2. pp. 72.
Computer arr br Jack Harrisl Visua1 Logie.

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our abilicy tO cross-check che visual evidence againsc escablished knowledge and
beliefs" (Mitchell, 1994: 73). This means the end of the "seeing is believing"
era and the beginning of a more critical approach towards visual evidences.
Once a photograph, or even elements of ic, is stored in a computer, we
gain unprecedenced control over ic. We can change, discort, or rearrange a
photograph without damaging the original. This control has interesting
consequences in a Baudrillardian perspective. As Jas de Mul remarks in his
article "The Vircualization of the World View: The End of Photography and the
Return of the Aura," Baudrillard's simulation theory "is a real option in the
digital domain" (de Mul, 1997: 53). For the auchor of Simulaera and Simulation
the successive phases of the image are:
le lS che refleceion of a profound realicy;
ic masks and denacures a profound realicy;
Îe masks che absence of a profound rea1icy;
ic has no relacion co any realicy whacsoever: ic is ics own pure simulacrum (1994: 6).
The examples from the National Geographie and from Time clearly "mask and
denature a profound reality," while the New York Newsday, NewsUJeek and Scientific
Ameriean illustrations "mask the absence of a profound reality." Indeed, in
these cases whac was piccured had simply never occurred. Reality is being
dismissed co the profit of an ediced one co give the public "perfecc" images.
WHAT DIFFERENTIATE5 DIGITAL FROM ANALOG?
Ocher than unlimited techniques of manipulation, several characteristics
differentiace conventional phocography from digital imagery. Prior mechods of
alteration such as collages, airbrushing, cropping, change of brightness, etc.,
could take a skilled craftsperson many hours or days to accomplish and despite
a tedious and expensive process, the final result was never guaranteed (Ritchin,
1990: 28-9). Now, thanks to the "electronic darkroom," the same changes can
be achieved in a fraction of the time. Manipulations which previously would
have been the outcome of several months' apprenticeship in the -chemical
darkroom are now a matter of days, and in sorne cases they can be made almost
instantaneously (Salgado, 1997: HREF). Anocher advanrage for editors and
photographers is that, unlike traditional methods of retouching which required
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waiting for new prints to see the result of the changes, modificacions performed
digitally can be witnessed immediately on the monitor (Reaves, 1987: 24). As a
result of these gains of time, the use of digital retouching is spreading and is
now used almost sysrematically. In fashion magazines for instance, bef01~e the
apparition of the technology, only the cover and a few ··important" pictures
used tO be retouched, whereas today almost aIl of them are (Tannen, 1994: 44).
Anorher important change inherent tO digital imaging is that no film or paper is
necessary ln the capture or storage of images. This implies that there are no
originals ln the sense of a negative. Moreover, once the image has been
digitized, the file can be copied and reproduced endlessly, without loosing any
of its quality or resolution contrary tO other methods of reproduction such as
photographs of photographs or photocopies. With digital technology, the
reproduction is always the same and is always perfecto Moreover, as Mitchell
nores, "computer files are open to modification at any time, and mutant
versions proliferate rapidly and endlessly" and "the lineage of an image file is
usually untraceable, and there may be no way to decermine whether it is a
freshly captured, unmanipulated record or a mutation of a mutation that has
passed through many unknown hands" (Mitchell, 1992: 51-2).
This aspect of digital photography, reproduction, paraUels Walter
Benjamin's 1936 classic account of the impact of photography upon the
handmade image ("The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction")
and as a result many commentators have undedined the importance of this text
to estimace the impact of digital cechnology upon photography. This affiliation
is particularly visible in tides such as PhotoVideo: Photography in the Age of the
Comprtter (Wombel1, 1991), "Photojournalism in the Age of Computers"
(Ritchin, 1990), "The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems"
(Nichols, 1988) or the even more obviously inspired "The Work of Art in the
Age of Digital Reproduction" (Davis, 1991-5). Why is a sixty-year-old essay
mentioned on such a regular basis? To answer this question we have tO first
examine Benjamin's propositions.
In "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" Benjamin
examines photography's capacities to reproduce mechanically handmade images
and stipulaces that inevitably the medium is meant co threaten the work of art,
as its aura" or uniqueness is being eliminated by mass reproduction:
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Even che mosc perfecc reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one elemenc: its presence in
cime and space, ics unique existence al: che place where it happens co be. This unique existence of
the work of an determined rhe hiscory co which ic was subjected chroughouc the time of its
existence. This indudes che changes which ic may have suffered in physical condition ovec the
years as weiL as che various changes in its ownership. The traces of the first can be revealed
only by chemical or physical analysis which ic is impossible co perform on a reproduction;
changes of ownership are subject to a cradition which musc be traced from che situation of the
original (Benjamin, 1936: 220).
Moreover, the Marxist critk points out that mechanical reproduction "substitutes
a plurality of copies for a unique existence" (Benjamin, 1936: 221), something
which might have a disintegrating effect on "originality" itself.
What happens in the digital era, or post-photographic as sorne caU it, is that
there is no more a distinction between "original" and "reproduction." As
Douglas Davis, a veteran in the New York art wodd and a pioneer in the use of
new media in the visual arts, putS it floridly: "The fictions of 'master' and
'copy' are now so enrwined with each other that it is impossible to say where
one begins and the other ends, resembling lovers folded rogether in ecstasy"
(Davis, 1991-5: HREF).
On the one hand chis means that Benjamin's prediction that the aura
disappears with mechanical reproduction is verified in the digital age. On the
other hand, however, many commentarors examine the properties of digital
Imaglng and differenciate it from analog photographic reproduction. For
instance, because digital images, supposed to be "original," are nothing more
than a table of numbers, co copy a number is nothing else than the very same
number. There is not a "real" double, but more a second "original." If a
number is changed, the image is obviously modified, but in the sense that it is
another one, as original as the first one (Huriet, 1998: HREF). This entices
philosopher Jos de Mul to affirm that the end of photography signifies the
return of the aura. According to him, as synthetic digital photography creates
"fundamentally infinice variation and transformation of the original, a return
of the aura cakes place" (de Mul, 1997: 54-5). Digital reproduction means the
death of the mechanical copy, not the original's. Mitchell supports this when he
wrices: "If mechanical image reproduction substituted exhibition value as
Benjamin daims, digital imaging further substituees a new kind of use value input
value, che capacity to he manipulated by computer - for exhibition
value" (Mitchell, 1992: 52). As a cesult, one can argue that the concept of
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manipulation itself does not make sense in the digital era since che manipulation
of an image implies the existence of an original, intencionally cransformed to
creace a message, that is an original, auchencic and a copy.
Nevertheless, che most importane aspect of the reproduction of che
digital and che digitalized images mighc be chat it facilicaces, acceleraces, and
effects the kinds of dispersals poscmodern ccicics asserc, assuring che plenicude
of copies.
"THAT-HAS-NEVER-BEEN" OR THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE REFERENT
As we have seen previously, an important aspecc of photography that has been
emphasized to procIaim the veracicy of the phocographic image is based on the
belief chat chere is always a referene; thac something similar co whac is depicced
exists outside of the frame of the picture. It is the existence of this referencial
characteristic - thac Barthes caUs the "That-has-been" - which is greatly
challenged by digital photography.
In the FaU of 1993, Time magazine featured on the cover of a special
issue, a photograph of "The New Face of America." The young woman
represented illuscraced a Story entided: "The New Face of America: How
immigrants Are Shaping the World's Firsr Multiculrural Society:' A side bar
revealed the origin of the model: "Take a good Look ac this woman. She was
created by a computer from a mix of several races. Whac you see is a remarkable
preview of... The New Face of America"(see figure 29). This caver girl,
symbolicaUy named Eve, was generaced from the photographs of seven women
and seven men of various ethnic and racial backgrounds by Kin Wah Lam. The
Asian-American computer specialise, dubbed a cybergeneticist, used Morph 2.0,
a professional, easy-co-use morphing software (Hammonds, 1997: 116). The
editors resorted ta this process as a way co, in the words of managing edicor Jim
Gaines, "dramatize the impacc of inter ethnic marriage, which has increased
dramaticaUy in the U.S. during the last wave of immigration" (Gaines, 1993: 2).
EmpLoying a similar technique (and a similar designation), Mirahella
magazine created an artificial model, "an extraordinary image of great American
beauty," for the caver of their September 1994 issue (see figure 30). As the
caption near the phocograph teased the reader with the question: "Who is the
Face of America," the editors gave the following cIues in the contents page of
the magazine:
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(lmIMatëri~l'Gld .;' .
',:,t~,~g~:

_
.~. E~·· ...... ................ ...-.-.-.-..
, ""-';1.';
~ -
-=~=
'.~.=-.=:--=-
~ "' _-- .-:.. . --..., ...-.

.~~

................ _.....------
: . : : =. .. ..-.-...=.....
- -...- ... ..... .-.-. - _ ....-... 0- -. .........._..-.-.....
~

::-...::.:'""-==:-

• 29. "The New Face of America". 1ïrne. Special issue FaU 1.993, voL 142. no. 21.. Phorographs for1ïme by Ted Thaï.

Morphing by Kin Wah Lam. 1ïrne imaging specialise.

30. Hiro. "An Extraordinary Image ~f Greae American Beaucy". MirahJ/a. Septernber 1.994.
3 L Visual Science Laborarory. "Kyoko Date, the first 'virrual idol'''. 1996.

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We asked che discinguished phocographer- Hiro co come up wich a cover personifying coday's
all-American beaucy. We choughc ic should be someone who represencs che diversicy of chis
councry. We know chac Hiro called in models - noc famous faces, buc beautiful faces, of aIl
echnicicies. And, afcer- an extensive search and painscaking work. he did presenc us wich an
extraordinary image of great American beaucy. Buc who is she? Hiro's noc celling. He will say
only chac she has never- been phocographed before and char she's noc wich any modeling agency.
And. she's impossible co reach. He hines char she's something of a split personalicy. And he
says, wich a smile, chat ic wasn'r easy geccing her- cogecher. Maybe her idencicy has something co
do with che micr-ochip floacing chmugh space, nexc co chac gorgeous face. America is a melcing
poc. And crue American beaucy is a combinacion of elemencs from all over che world. Is our
cover mode1 represencacive of che me1cing por? AIl we're sure of is char her looks could melc
jusc about anyching (Mirabella, 1994).
le is no surprise chac che model was "impossible co reach," nor chac she was noc
easy to get cogecher since che Jyfirabella cover was in face a composite piceure
created by combining the piccures of six different women. The besc eyes from
one model were added co the best ubee sting" lips of anochec, etc., co create the
pecfect face which, as a result, has no correlation in reality.
In 1996, the Visual Science Laboracory (VSl), a ] apanese computec
software company, went even further when it generared a nonexiscent image
through computer cechnology. The very sophisticaced facsimile of a young
woman was designed from scratch by VSl for Horipro, a talent agency and
Kyoko Date, also known as DK-96 or "che firsc virtual idol," was made chanks
co che larest computer technologies (see figure 31). In addition, VSl creaced her
an ideal face. In che beginning, che project team started by imicating actual
celebcities' feacures, but quickly changed dicection and decided finally to
fashion a complerely imaginary look for their vicrual pop-star (Visual Science
laboracory, 1996: HREF).
Kyoko Date is interesting because "she" is pure simulation in Baudrillard's
sense of the cerm. That is, she was creared chrough "che generation of models of
a real wichout origin oc realicy: a hypecreal" (Baudcillard, 1994: 1). Eve and
che Mirabella covec girl are only an ama!garn of features that directly reference
the real without necessarily being ceaL Their physical features ace a
combinacion of those of ceal people, which have been subsequently mixed
together co create their idealiscic virtual faces. Both models owes theic- "genes"
co human models, whereas Kyoko Date cornes fcom her creacors' imagination.
San Fcansisco-based accist Keith Cottingham's work pecfectly illustraces
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chis loss of origin or referenc wich his chree portraits entided Single, Twins and
Triplets from che Fictitious Portraits series (see figure 32). If these images look
ac first to be studio portraics of what cheir respeccive cides indicate, chey are
not. They are digically conscructed color photographs, composed and
constructed representacions, and their subjects do not coincide with any physical
person. Cottingham's subjects do not exist, never have, and most probably never
will. Even though they appear soulful and real, these portraits depict fictitious
beings. The illusion, however, is tocal and due, ficsdy tO the belief that
phocography is a representation of realiry, and secondly, tO the long tradition of
portraiture. By mimicking chis genre, Cottingham shows how elastic the label
"realism" is (Cottingham, 1996: 162). Moreover, for the arrist: "These
seemingly formaI portraics foreground human reality as construction, as the
product of signifying activities which play upon che body" (Cottingham, 1996:
164). Cottingham is making an important statemenc, core to postmodern
thinking: the construction of the subject and reality.
As we can see, in their essence these Fictitious Portraits, che Mirabella
cover girl, Eve and Kyoko Date contradict Barthes' concept of che mandatory
existence of a photographic referenc, the famous "there-has-been". None of these
"models" have ever been placed in front of the lens of a camera. The fact that
someone's representation exists is no longer absoluce proof thac che person
behind ic exists. Ic may have been electronically manipulated, or even compucer
generated, and no accual original may have ever even existed as is che case with
Kyoko Date or Keich Cotcingham's subjects. As ic has already been mentioned
in chis paper, ewenty years ago, Soncag noced chac "the piccure may discorc; but
there is always a presumpcion chat something exists, or did exist, which is like
what's in che piccure" (Santag, 1973: 5). With digital imaging technolagy chis
is no longer crue. Therefore, Sancag's assumpcion and Barthes' concept of the
thing "That-has-been," are cleady concradicted by digital phatography.
Paraphrasing him, one could daim chac unlike analogue phacagraphy, digital
photography, daes not have the power "co campel [us} co believe its referent
had really existed" (Barthes, 1981: 77). As Edmond Couchot remarks in his
essay "The digital systhesis of che image," digical images present rather
someching which "might be" chan something chat "once was" (in Icoh, 1994:
HREF). In the world of computer manipulation, realicy itself can be dismissed
or made up according to the operacor's fantasy.
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Untitltd (Douhle)
Untilltd (TripM
32. Keith Cottingham. FiaitioJlS Portraits series. 1992. Digitally caost[Uctoo calar phatographs. Fine Arts. New York.

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Furthermore, the lack of evidence co substantiate the principle of the
referent will become more evident as the cechnology develops. As Fred Ritchin,
a former direccor of photography for The New York Times Magazine and the
founding direcror of the photojournalism program at the International Center
for Photography, observes in his essay "Photojournalism in the age of the
computers," "This last technique - creating a &realistic' image from scratch
with a computer - is perhaps the most revolutionary in its implication because
it allows the generarion of imagery according tO mathematical application that
simulate realicy" 34 (Ritchin, 1990: 32). As a matter of fact, the electronic image
fulfills the condition of what Baudrillard has termed the "simulacrum" - it is
a copy of which there is no original: the referent has disappeared and has been
replaced by a simulacrum. Therefore, it is important to realize that this aspect
of digital photography shifts the debate of photo-manipulation from questions
such as urs it true or faIse?" to questions such as urs it real or not?".
RETHINKING PHOTOGRAPHY AND REPRESENTATION
The digitized pieture has broken the relationship between pictllre and rea/ify O'lce and for ail. We are
entering a'l era when no one will he able to say whether a pieture is trtlth f»" false. They are ail becoming
bealltifrd and e:r:traordinary. and with each passing day they he!ong increasing!y to the U'orld of advertising.
Their bea/ity. !ike their tmth ù slipping away [rom liS. Soon. they will really end /ip making liS hlind.
- Wim \Venders
As it has been demonstrated previously, photographs have never been entirely
objective representations of reality. Their historical use as evidence and reliable
documentation has always been in contradiction with practices of manipulation
in the fields or portraiture, advertising and art. NeveLtheless, their reputation
for fidelity has managed to remain largely intact in the popular imagination,
and unless a photograph has sorne form of obvious inconsistency, it will be
believed. As a society, we continue to grant a strong presumption chat a
photograph is undeniable evidence that a particular event, object or person once
exisred materially as depicted (McCaLVel, 1995: HREF). As the preliminary
remarks on the project "Photography after Photography" reminds us:
"Although we know better, our ~ustomary reflex still persists in attributing the
usual reality-content to images which have a photographic semblance"
34 Almost a decade lacer, che cechnology has progressed tO che point where digical human beings
can be creaced wich the highest realism. Generic Modelling and Media is for instance one of the
companies chac specialize in chis field. Possible applications include facial identification.
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(Amelunxen, Ighlhaut, and Rotzer, 1995: 10). Even rhough postmodern theorists
have long rejected this assertion of croth value for the photographic image,
Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein note that "the "pencH-of-nature idea"
still persiscs (Kroker and Weinstein, 1994: 111), while Peter Lunenfeld argues
that "the very fury of the debate over digital imaging proves that the public
sphere still holds che evidenciary nature of photography in high regard"
<Lunenfeld, 1996: 95).
In 1994, James E. Kelly and Diona Nace conducced a study, encided
"Digital Imaging & Believing Photos," in which they investigated, amongst
other thernes, che way knowledge of digital manipulation technology could or
could not affect the level of credibility of news piccures. Even though the study
did noc verify the hypochesis chat uexposure to [a} Phoroshop demonscracion
will lead to lower levels of stocy credibility, of photo believability, and of
general newspaper believability," the authors are conscious of the limit of their
experirnenc: "Our videotape simply. stressed the capabilities of the software
generally. Had it aiso shown examples of retouched photographs published by
reputable newspapers and magazines, the effect rnight have been stronger"
(Kelly and Nace, 1994: 4-5). Moreover, chey found that '·photographs have a
believability beyond chat of the medium of photography itself and perhaps are
as dependent on the nature of the information they present as are the words in a
text srory'· (Kelly and Nace, 1994: 5). However, <l.ccording ro the ewo authors,
people believe in photographs , not because they are exact [an} rendering of
u

reality,'· but because they match their own personal convictions (Kelly and
Nace, 1994: 5).
However, as a resuit of the rec~nt developrnents in computer simulated
irnage-making, the traditional photographic irnagery that was based on the
mirror theory of representation is greatly challenged. As Graham Clarke notes
in The Photograph: "The photograph, far from being a literaI or mirror of the
world, is an endlessly deceptive forrn of representation" (Clarke, 1997: 25).
Even if the idea of manipulating photographs is far from new, as we saw
earlier, the current technological innovacions are raising new questions abouc
the status of the photographic image because of their previously described
specificities: speed, low cost, availability, and systematicness. Moreover, the
rapid growrh of computer networks, notably the Internet, facilitate the
disserninacion of digital images, manipulated or not, to an uncontrollable point
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instigating issues of ethics and copyright. Indeed, unlike other forms of media
such as newspapers, radio or television, there is no editorial control over what
is diffused on the Web35 . So how do we deal with this profusion of images?
How do we discern "troth" from propaganda? And more importandy what are
the implications of this situation ?
DEATH OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIe IMAGE?
One of the main consequences of the introduction of digital imaging is
obviously the suspicion which surrounds the photographie image. Today, more
than a century and a half after the invention of photography, many
commentators are announcing the death of the medium, or more precisely the
death of its privileged status as an unbiased representation of reality. For Fred
Ritchin, who claimed as soon as in 1990 that "the ethical or factual problem of
computer alteration arises with the grearest urgency" (Ritchin, 1990: 29),
photographie integrity is at stake as digital image technology dramatically
increases the possibilities of image manipulation. As he observes in his article
"Photojournalism in the Age of Computers:" "The implications of chis new
rechnology are now becoming clear. In fact, the new malleability of the image
may evenrually lead co a profound undermining of photography's status as an
inherently truthful pictorial form" (Ritchin, 1990: 28). For Anne-Marie
Willis, aurhor of the article "Digitization and the Leaving Death of
Photography," the mutation visual imagery is undergoing is "as significant as
the invention of photography itself' (Willis, 1990: 197) and the introduction
of the new technology marks the end of photogtaphy (as implied by the selfexplanatory
tide of her essay). As she further writes:
In sorne ways we are facing che deach of phocography - bue as in movle fiecion che eorpse
remains and is re-animated, by a mysrerious new process, tO inhabie the earth like a zombie.
Imagery chae looks photOgraphie will continue tO exist, bue ies means of teproduceion is
35 The publicacion in September 1997 of a faked phocograph supposedly depieeing Diana,
Princess of Wales, dying on the back of a crashed Mercedes showed the speed wich which
(inaccurace) information can be disseminaced over che global computer neework. As Amy
Harmon, author of an article eneided "Phony Diana photo reignites debace on incernet
poscings," remarks, even chough the image was immediately dismissed as an hoax, several
newspapers and celevision ehannels used it. Nevercheless as Harmon points oue, ic is important
to noce the internet has the reputaeion co ofeen carry bad information as a result of the ease co
access and eransmic whacever informaeion, crue or false and as a result che credibiliry of che
medium is racher low (Harmon, 1997: HREF).
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undergoing radical changes (Willis, 1990: 198).
According to William J. Mitchell, who investigates the destruction of the troth
value of the photographie image in The Reconfigured Bye: "From the moment of
its sesquicentennial in 1989 photogcaphy was dead - or, more precisely,
radically and permanently displaced - as was painting 150 years ago"
(Mitchell, 1992: 20). However, more impoctantly perhaps, for Mitchell digital
photography signifies the beginning of a new era, chat of "post-photogcaphy."
Actist David Hockney echoes this concern when asked about the likely effect of
compurer-generaced imagery: "r can see it's the end of chemical photogcaphy"
and "We had this belief in photogcaphy, but that is about to disappear because
of the computer" CLeith, 1990: 37).
IMPLICATIONS
The most important consequence of the InvaslOn of digital irnaging is that it
totally challenges the belief we had in che photograph as an accurace
cepresentation of reality, the "incontrovertible proof chat a given thing
happened." Phocography is only a forrn of represencation, an imitation which
can always be doubted. In 1988, The Bruce Museum in Greenwich Connecticut
proposed an exhibition entitled "(art)n Laboracory: Photographie Truth" which
included works by many prominent arrists, such as Richard Avedon, John
Baldessaci, Robert Cumming, Nam June Paik, Richard Prince, Cindy Shecman,
etc. This is how Nancy Hall-Duncan, the curator of the exhibition, introduced
the projecr:
The new capaciry of phocography wich computer cechnology raises difficulc issues: the viewer is
no longer dependenc on his eyes co cell him che "cruch" buc musc rely on who is telling him
that the evidence seen is real, a siruacion wich complex and frighcening moral implications. An
even more frightening possibility attends anorher recenc developmenc which allows taking a
scill image of anyching and creating a videotape in which che subject of che image can be made co
perform any desired accion realiscically. One indication of where technical manipulation may
lead in the furure is che PHSCologram, a cerrn derived from the beginning leccers of
photography, holography, sculprure and computer graphies. Produced by a ceam of arcisrs
collectively known as (arr)n , che image aI' no dme exists in "real" space. but is instead che
phocographic record or pure conceptual choughr (Hall-Duncan, 1988: HREF).
Digital imaging forces us to reexamine the fundamental concept of
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representation, the relationship we have had with the photographic image and
reconsider the medium in its entirery. This is an especially difficult assessmenc
to make since, as we have seen earlier, we have been culturally and
institutionally conditioned tO believe in che photograph. However, since, as
Philippe Quéau, researcher at the Paris Inscitut Nacional de L'Audiovisuel,
remarks "we can generate any image whatsoever, we can also use simulation tO
substanciace any thesis and demonscrare it by the pseudo-evidence of the visible"
(in Clayssen, 1996: 74) ic is important co reassess the status of the phocographic
image.
William Mitchell daims in the very short conclusion, entitled "Shadows on
the Wal1,"of his book The Reconfigr,red Eye that Uche emergence of digital
imaging has irrevocably subverred these cerrainties [the cruthful nature of the
photographic image}. forcing us to adopt a far more wary and more vigilant
inrerpretarive stance [...} An interlude of faise innocence has passed" (Mitchell,
1992: 225).
However, total skepticism and cynicism is not necessarily the best
option. It has to be remembered that even though photographs can be
manipulated, they can also be important visual proofs. As Ritchin remarks in
"Photojournalism in the Age of Compurers," if the status of photographic truth
is completely desrroyed and we are no longer able to rely on any kind of
photographie evidence, we might as well be condemned to plain nihiLicism. As
he wrires: "If even a minimal confidence in phorography does not survive, it is
questionable whether many pictures will have rneaning anymore, not only as
symbols but as evidenee. A government will be able co deny the veraeiry of
images of torture victims, for example - and it may be diffieult to prove
otherwise" (Ritehin, 1990: 37). Rirehin develops further his argument in
another essay. In "The End of Photography as We Have Known It," he does not
only argue that Uthe photograph is as malleable as a paragraph, able to
illustrace whatever one wancs it co" (Ritchin, 1991: 12) but also reiterares his
eoncerns about the possible disappearanee of the phocograph as an evidenee of
anything. Aceording co him, if this funetion vanishes there rnight be a risk chat
Uphotographs which seem tO go too mueh against the cornmon system [will bel
automatically rejecred" (Ritehin, 1991: 14). If photographie images become
reflexively disbelieved, chen the fact-based abiLity u to change world opinion
even against the most powerful governments" will be lost (Ritehin, 1991: 15).
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In addition~ the current methods of alteration present enormous legal and
ethical challenges that craditional ways of photo-manipulation did not~ and most
of it has to do with che ease wich which one can have access co chem~ store chem
and manipulate them with a computeC'. Finally, as we have seen earlier, che
images produced by the computer are conscructed in such a way chac they can
simulate the appearance of a "real" photograph, wichouc referring necessarily ro
anything "real," blurring the boundaries beeween realiry and simulation.
SOLUTIONS
For Ritchin, a possible solution is ro rely on phocographers' echics and "sense
of honor." Aecording to him, in the future, "che phocographer will have tO be
considered co be the auchor of his or her images, responsible for the accuracy of
what is in chem" (Ritchin, 1990: 36). Moreover, Ritehin believes that it will be
impoctant to define photogcaphs "undec categories such as fiction and nonfiction
oc editocializing and repoccage" and that ic may become necessary to U

employ a specifie tecminoLogy, sueh as ·photo-illusc.ration,' to differentiate

physically manipulated phocographs from other images" (Ricchin, 1990: 36).
Finally, the former picture edicor declares that any interference made on a
photograph, should it be during the shooting stage (staging for instance) or
lacer on the computer, should be clearly indicaced to viewers.
Another aspect to consider is chat, image manipulation, if proven, can
jeopardize the credibility of its author or publisher - 1 believe for example
that the level of dependability of National Geographie suffered greatly from the
pyramids episode. In addition, when a fallacy is revealed, it very often
generaces pages of criticism and analysis, and the practice is usually condemned
by media professionals themselves (the darkened O.]., the fake ice-skating
pracrice, etc). Ir may weil be that che media will not jeopardize cheir hard-won
credibiliry for a few images and c~ke the risk co desc.roy the believabilicy of all
visual images (Huriet, 1998: HREF). Therefore, one will have to depend not
only on the good standing of the photographer, but aIso on the reputation of a
given publication. Reputation of both parties will validate or not che content
and authenticiry of photographs.
For many eriticaI commentators, photography should, from now on, be
85
regarded as the resule of the photographer's expression racher than an objectiverepresentacion of reality and
should be rreaced similady co prose description or
painting 36 : Jacques Leslie, concribucing writer for Wired sllggests that a Ubecter
approach mighc be co remind readers co view photographs wich che same healthy
skepcicism chey apply co the written word" (Leslie, 1995: 113). Similarly,
Peter Lunenfeld writes: "The digital photograph must now be treated as having
che same troch value as a wricten text" (Lllnenfeld, 1996: 95). Finally, for Max
Frankel, a New York Times colllmnist: "By rransforming a chemical craft into an
electronic arc, computers are... forcing us to begin thinking of photographs as
we do of paintings - as renderings of art instead of representations of reality··
(Frankel: HREF). It is kind of ironie to think chat more than 150 years ago,
when photography was invented, history painter Paul Delaroche (1797-1856)
reporcedly declared UFrom this day on painting is dead!" 37. Given its
coincidental connotation, this quote is unsurprisingly mencioned in most works
on photography and digital imaging (see for instance Gernsheim, 1982: 45,
Mitchell, 1992: 3, Bacchen, 1997: 207, or Marien, 1997: 55 ). Less known
perhaps and equally inspired, are the definitions French novelisr Gustave
Flaubert gave co the terffiS "photography" and "Daguerreotype" in his Dictionary
of Received ldeas: the entry under "Phorography" reads: "Will make painting
obsolete. (See daguerreotype.)" and the entry for "Daguerreotype'· reads "Will
take the place of painting. (See Photography.)" (in Crimp, 1983: 51). Now at
the very end of the cwentieth Centllry, we have co regard the media that was
sllpposed co cause the death of painting more or less like a... painting.
Moreover, as a result of this confusion, there have been sorne
suggestions to affix a symbol to aIl the published photographs that have been
digitally altered. However, whether it is former New York Times Magazine photo
editor Fred Ritchin's icon of a tiny crossed-out camera lens, or the Unot-a-Iens"
symbol (a circle inside a square with a diagonal slash and a description of what
was changed in the picture) proposed by a committee on photographie standards
at New York Universicy, or the Norwegian capital "M·' for "montasje" which
36 Ic is ineerescing co poine ouc here the way Adobe promotes ics Photoshop software: "Creace,
painc, cocrect, and recouch with che 'camera for your mind·:·
37 Mitchell wrices the following in his noce co Delacoche's quoce: wThis ac lease, is che scandard
scory. If ic is noc quice crue, ic should be" (Mitchell, 1992: 228n4). Naomi Rosenblum in A
World History of Photography writes abouc "[he much-publicized pronouncement" Paul Delaroche
made "chac che daguerreocype signaIed the end of painting is perplexing because chis dever arcise
aIso forecasc che usefulness of che medium for graphie arrise in a le[ter co François Arago in
1839" (Rosenblum 1981: 209).
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is employed ta signal modification, there is apparently little chance for the idea
to catch on (Shenk, 1997: HREF, Leslie, 1995: 113, and in Lunenfeld, 1996:
95). Four experts, interviewed by Wired magazine for an article on che fucure of
phocography, were split when asked tO determine if a symbol like a cirded A
on a photograph would become a standard tO warn viewers that an image has
been digitally altered. Carl Gustin, senior vice president and chief marketing
officer of Eastman Kodak Company and Georgia McCabe, senior vice president
of marketing and business developments of the Digital Imaging Systems section
of Applied Graphics Technologies Ine. predicred its standard use within the next
decade, whereas the two interviewed phocographers, Barr Nagel and Rick
Smolan thought it was simply unlikely tO happen. As Nagel puts it bluntly:
"Phocographs have always lied, and this is not the time co start announcing it"
(Pescovitz, 1997: 90).
For digital arrise Bill Niffenegger, average media consumers need to
realize that trusting what they see, whether it is a TV commercial, a movie
footage, or a newspaper phocograph, is naive. As he remarks: "Ic's like going
online in a chat room. There will always be 300-pound hairy guys calling
themselves 'Mary.' We just have to grow up" (DeMocker, 1998: HREF).
We are nowadays supposed co be visually more sophisticared and less
inclined to accept the phomgraphic "evidence:' Indeed as Jacques Clayssen
writes in his essay "Digital (R)evolution:" "Many cases of manipulated images
had already been regisrered, but the accumulation and denunciation of certain
abuses have heightened public awareness of the need to remain watchful and
wary when it cornes to images that belong more co the cacegory of illustration
chan testimony" (Clayssen, 1996: 74). In his 1976 essay "Art, Cornmon Sense
and Photography" for the review Camerawork, Victor Burgin was already
remarking even though "noc much is known about how the media influence
opinions, [ ...] we can be fairly sure chac people aren't simply led by the nose
by photographs" (Burgin, 1976: 75).
Nonetheless, photographic images appear to still affect us. Even if
photographs are becoming more and more immaterial, their consequences might
still be very material. J udging for example by the coneroversies and discussions
surrounding the representaeion of women in che media, which alleges chac the
aetual porerayal of women damages women's self esteem and health, ie seems
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reasonable to believe that the power of the photograph has not yet been fully
eradicated38 •
38 For more information on these daims see for instance the following scudies which suggest a
relationship beeween the use of very chin models in che mass media, negarive body perception
and eating disorders. For instance, in a 1986 study "Sorne correlares of the thin standard of
bodily attractiveness for women," Silverstein, Pecerson and Perdue found that the years in
which the number of women in managerial positions and professional positions increased, in the
1920's and late 1960's, the female body ideal, as reflecred in issues of Ladies Home Journal and
Vogue, became slimmer and that the thin ideal preceded rhe rimes when the rares of anorexia
nervosa were highest (Inrernational Joumal of Euring Disorders, :5 (5». Lucas, Beard,
O'Fallon, Kurland scudied the incidents of anorexia nervosa over a 50-year period in rheir 1991
"50-year trends in the incidence of anorexia nervosa in Rochester, Minn.: A populacion-based
study" and found that the cycle of the incidence of anorexia nervosa among 10-19 year-old girls
paralleled the change of fashion and its idealized body image (American Journal of Psychiatry,
148 (7), 917-22). The resulrs of the 1990 study "Mirror images: Effects of the standard of
beaucy on the self- and body-esteem of wornen exhibiting vacying levels of bulirnic symptoms"
showed that aIl subjects experienced the greatest amounr of pressure co be thin from the media
(Journal of Social and Clùûcal Psychology, 9 (2), 230-42). Moreover, Stiee, Schupak-Neuberg,
Shaw, and Stein found a direct relationship between media exposure and eating disorders
sympcorns in their 1994 "Relation of media exposure tO eating disorder sympcomatology: An
examination of rnediating rnechanisms" (journal of Abnorma/ Psych%gy, 103 (4). 836-40).
sa

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CHAPTER FOUR
CULTURE OF MANIPULATION
We are su"olmded by photographie images which cOflStitute a global system of misinformation: the system
known as publicity, proliferating COflSlITflerist lies. The raIe of photography in this system is revealing.
The lie is constructed beftre the camera. A "tableau" of objects and figure is assembled. This "tableau"/ises a
language of symbols (...}, an implied narrative, and frequently, some kind of perfOrmance by 11lodels with
a sexlial content. This "tableau" is then photographed. It is photographed preeisely hecause the camera can
bestow authenticity Ilpon any set of appearances. however false. The camera does no{ lie even when if i.s used
to qllote a lie. And sa, this makes the lie appear more trllthfitl.
- John Berger. Another Way ofTel/ing, 1982.
As it has been demonstrared in the previous chapter, recouched and manipulaced
phocographs are invading che media and many cultural cheoriscs argue chac
digical imaging cechnology is menacing che real, manufaccuring a world of
hyperreality. Sorne have even calked of a crisis of represencacion. However,
whac l want ro argue in chis chaprer is chat che manipulation of phocographs
cells us a lot about our society's standards. The new digital procedures cannot
simply be reduced to a matter of rechnological improvement. Ir is therefore
important to examine how the cechnology is used, by whom and for what
purposes. The case of women's magazines will provide the primary basis for
this analysis. In addition, this chapter will present sorne of our society's
preoccupations chat seem to be substantiared by the use of electronic imaging.
The preoccupations l have identified are the following: Pursuit of eternal
youch, fear of death, and dismissal of biology, negation of individuality,
culture of cleanliness and will co control.
In 1990, when actress Michelle Pfeiffer appeared on the cover of Esquire
in a low cuc red dress, che caption beside che photo read: "Whac Michelle
Pfeiffer Needs... Is Absolutely Noching" (see figure 33). Noching, excepc
$1,525 worth of couch-ups, as Adbusters Qrtarterly revealed five years larer, a sum
Diane Seocc Associates, Inc. charged Esqrtire magazine for the following work,
described in a purchase order obcained by Santa Cruz's Media Watch and
reprinted by the "journal of the mencal environment:"
89

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I...l..l...l.ill
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~~...;;.:a., ~~ ~~1rwa "':.u._~ ..n:K' :.-.:-- '!Il"r~::.~":.;,

~ ~.. Wril''''' .......~ ........ 1.........-.... .. ~ :...-"" ,~ ....

~-::-~ ~-= ....... 41::"'.;,,:: :,:l:r SS!,adc: ...u--.A. ~ ~ ~....s:~ 'Y ~~ ;:....-L.,

...... _ ~_ -.-0:'-'-"" .... -'-.... .a-..,... ~I ........'"t t.,..... ~at .... .................

=..c.. :r ':': ~ ..." ~~ .IJI~. U-'...D ~.-:.~_ r'~ C' ~"'- .:&J.
~'~r_ ...-.r J .. ~ C.-.dJ..
:w-r..... ~t':. ~ ~~'!"-.....:'=.3lICX. ,....~~ .. '~.::..:.,_-.I:
...-- .. ........-.... _ -..... -..1 ......... ~ :_....-.-. ....... 1... ..........~
~~ ~ -.....,.,.........._ ~ ~~':~ .. -..r'P'" .~-: ,,1,1(.,

.......
33. -Whar Michelle Pfeiffer Needs... Cs Absolurely Norhïng". Esquire. December 1990. Digically enhanced cover.
34. Purchase order from Diane Scorr Associares. Inc. 1990. Reprimee! from Adhll.Iltr$ Quarter/y, Summer 1995. p. 9.

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Clean up complexion, sofcen eye lines, soften smile line, add color co lips, crim chin, remove
neck lines, sofren line under ear lobe, add highlighcs co earrings, add blush co cheeks, clean up
neck line, remove scray hair, remove hair strands on dress, adjusc color and add hair on top of
head, add dress on side co creace beccer line, add dress on shoulder, dean up an smooch dress
folds under arm and creace one seam on image on righc side. Ecc... (see figure 34).
Today, phorographs on che cover of almosc every magazine have been retouched
using computer technology. For most fashion and beaury photographers, to
retire to their computers, after a photo shoot, to rearrange digitally their
picrures has became an integral part of their work. As Robert Newman, design
director for Details magazine, states: "There's a lot more retouching now than
chere used ro be" (Kennedy, 1997: HREF). If retouching, indeed, has always
been around, as we have shown earlier, the new digital rechnology makes it 50
effortless and fast, that its use is becoming systematic. What used to he a
privileged creatment, reserved for the cover and a few selecred photographs, is
now so widespread that virtually every photograph one can see in a magazine
has undergone sorne digital modification 39 (Tannen, 1994: 44). This tendency is
especially flagrant in advertising and women's magazines 40 , [WO fields, which
unlike ocher genres of photography such as scraight or documentary never
pretended ro be realistic representations. Nevertheless, the fact chac che use of
digical imaging cechnology co enhance photographs is never clearly mentioned
tends to suggesc chac lay readers may noc be aware of chese praccices, or ac Leasc
of cheir excene. Even if Lucy 5isman, a former design director of magazines
such as A/!ltre and lvfademoisefle, believes chat readers of fashion and beauty
magazines are "sophisticated enough" to know chat photographs are rerouched
(Tannen, 1994: 44), such a daim can be challenged. As Dan Couro, a Toronrobased
photographerlgraphic designer who specializes in digital imaging, scates:
rom aware, because l do ic for a living, chac compucer effeccs are being used in a way chac
39 The cechnique is so widespread chac somecimes magazines are suspecced co have performed
more changes chan chey claimed co have made. For inscance, Details raised sorne concroversy
when ic was claimed chac che magazine had campered ics February and March 1999 cavers. The
firsc cover, fearuring Elizabech Hurley, was accacked by several British newspapers which
daimed chac che accress' busc had been digically enhanced by nearly 30 percenc. The second
cover, which showed Denise Richards tocally nude and wrapped in a chin scrip of film, was
denounced by an induscry insider who claimed chac che accress' head had been sruck on top of
anorher woman's naked body. According co che source, che campering was apparent since che size
of che body in che shoc was encirely ouc of proportion co che size of che head. The magazine
denied all che allegacions. (Johnson, 1999: HREF).
40 As well as men's magazines - though che images are of.... women: Playhoy for inscance is
renowned for airbrushing lCS nudes co offer "perfecc" images co ics (male) readers.
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(ordinary) people can'c ceU chac chese effeccs are being used. Every fashion scory i5 recouched [Q
che poine where every model has perfect skin... You feel sad for Fred and Wilma who buy
products chinking chey'U end up looking like chese images (Singer, L998: HREF).
Even though we are said to become visually more sophisticated and less
inclined co accept the photographic "evidence," photographs appear still to
affect us: they can move us, rnake us angry, laugh, dream or even feel guilty.
Sorne cultural critics have even talked about "the power of the image" and have
srudied the effects of visual images on individuals or groups. Other theorists
have ofren observed that the representation of women in the mass media is based
on imagery defined by social and cultural forces which erase any trace of
reality. Borzello and aL for instance wrire that "from its beginnings, feminism
has regarded ideas, language and images as crucial in shaping women's (and
men's) lives" (Borzello and al., 1985: 2). As a result, issues about the
artificiality of these images, from stereotyped portrayals to plastic surgery,
have been extensively commented upon. However, it seems that few have
discussed the consequences of digital imaging cechnology furrher than as simple
examples. This is worth noting, considering that in comparison, every digital
abuse from officially acknowledged "serious" magazines generares pages of
critics and analysis (see for instance the previously discussed cases of che
moved pyramids on che cover of che National Geographie or che darkened photo
of 0.]. Simpson on the cover of Time). \Vomen are noc che only subjects of the
cechnology; cherefore, it would be simpliscic to assume chese praccices are, as a
lot of feminiscs would argue, only che consequences of a pacriarchal society.
Pictures of men are also recouched, whether they are simple models or public
figures such as movie stars or policicians41 . Nevertheless, one has co admit the
technology is performed the most blatantly and the mosc systematically on
images of women. As we shaH see later, most of the recent cases of extreme
manipulation have involved women.
This chaprer proposes to first identify and discuss the different levels of
manipulation, from simple retouching co more sophisticared procedures such as
41 Ic is worth noting chac a "political variation" of cosmetic recouching exiscs and that lt
obviously involves primarily men. Paris Match's edicors once admitted tO eveneually recouch the
photographs of policical leaders 50 chat chey appear wrinkle-free and wichouc disgraceful defects
in cheir magazine. Moreover, some politicians may even require ic. See for example the
phocograph of Scalin published co celebrace che Soviet leader's sixciech birthday (figure 35). As
David King noces: "Scalin's skin has been positively pancaked, his hair and muscache are now as
smooth as a matinee idol's. and che gliar in his eye is all that remains of the original (King,
1997: 98).
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•• 35. Moisei Nappelbaum. Stalin. 1924.

Moisei Nappelbaum. Official portrait ro (debrar~ Sralin's 60rh hirthday. 1939. Recouched.

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zipper heads. Secondly, it examines the characteristics of the manipulation made
on the photographs of women and tries co understand whac chese procedures
suggest about our society, what "myths" in a Bacchesian perspective, they
reveal.
DIGITALLY-CONSTRUCTED IMAGES OF WOMEN
My waist is not thin, and my legs are not that long. As for the hoohs we ail know they are not real
anyway. These calendar manufacturers and magazine editors ail airbrush the photos ta create the ideal
which doesn't exÏst. It is ridiculous. - Jenny McCarthy
In the following section, l would like co discuss the different levels of
women's digitally-enhanced photographs, as they appear in the mass media.
There are indeed, different stages in image manipulation, from the moment
when only simple, basic, retouching is involved - l shaH refer to this kind of
retouching as "cosmetic" - when the image simply '"masks and denatures a
profound reality" to the point where the image "masks the absence of a
profound reality," (both oedees of the image as defined by Jean Baudrillard in
Simrtfacra and Simlllation) which is when sophisticated alrerations allowed by the
nature of the rechnology are being used tO generare images of women which
have no relation to reality whatsoever, when the image becomes its own pure
simulacrum (Baudrillard, 1994: 6). Furthermore, we shall see how digital
manipulation reinforces concepts central co the postmodern discourse in rerms
of construction and fabrication of the image.
COMPUTER GLAMOURIZATION
The first caregory of digital alreration l would like tO discuss, consists of
basic, cosmetic touch-ups, such as the erasing of flaws, scars, blemishes, and
notably wrinkles. 1 have chosen to refer tO these practices as "computer
glamourization.'· By using these rwo rerms together, l want to point out that the
construction of images of women descend from a long tradition. As we shaH
see, computers are only the latest developments ln manipulating
representations, and the idea of enhancing women through technology is not
unprecedented.
The most blatant example of women's construction might be well
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comprehended, if one considers the process of "starification" deployed by
Hollywood movie-studios from the 1930s on, a process usually referred to as
the Hollywood star system 42. In his study on stardom, The Stars, French
sociologist Edgar Morin described the process tO make a star, emphasizing its
constructed aspect:
A talent scout is struck by a promJsmg face in the subway. Proposition, test photo, ceSt
recording. If the teStS are conclusive, the young beauty leaves for Hollywood. Immediately put
under contract, she is refashioned by by the masseurs, the beauticians, the dentists, even the
surgeons. She learns co walk, loses her accent, is raught co sing, tO stand, co sit still, co "hold
herself:' She is instrucced in liceracure, ideas. The foreign star whom Hollywood cuts back to
stadet level sees her beauty transfor11led, reco11lposed, Max-Factorized, and she learns American.
Then there are more tests: among others a 30-second cLose-up in Technicolor. There is a new
winnowing-out. She is noticed, approved, and given a minot role. Het car, her servants, her
dogs, her goldfish, her birds are chosm for her. Her personality grows more complex, becomes
enriched. She waits for letcers. Nothing. Failure. But one day or the next the Fan Mail
Department might notify the Executive Producer that she is receiving 300 letters a day from
admirers. The studio decides to launch her, and fabricates a fairy tale for which she is the
heroine. She provides macerial for the columnists; her privare life is already illuminated by the
glare of the projectors. At last she is given the lead in a major film. Apotheosis: the day when
her fan rear her cloches: she is a star (Morin, 1972: 51, my emphasis).
Once the star had been made, her/his near mythological status, as sorne have
suggested, was rnaintained thraugh carefully made up images which glorified
the star's exceptional beauty. George Hurrell (1904-1992), dubbed the "Grand
Seigneur of the Hollywood Portrait," contributed gready ra this: hired in 1930
as head of che MGM portrait gallery Hurrell's use of dramatic poses, sharp
focus, high-contrast lighting and masterful printing techniques inspired a new
gente: Glamour photography, and set a new standard for Hollywood portraits
(George Hurrell Biography: HREF, see figure 36). This genre might offer
sorne of the first obviously and intentionally construcred images of women
(and men)43 . As John Berger remarked in Ways of Seeing: "Glamour is a modern
invention. In the heyday of the ail painting it did not exist. Ideas of grace,
42 For discussions of the birth of star system see: Fowles, Jib. (1995) "Mass Media and the
Star System" by Jib Fowles, in David Crowley and Paul Heyer (Eds.), Communications in
History (2nd ed.; pp.207-214). White Plains, NY: Longman. Other important discussions is
available in 1970 Alexander Walker's Sfardo11l. New York: Stein and Day.
43 If George Hurrell pioneered the genre of glamour in Hollywood, the Studio Harcourt
created similar portraits in 1950s France. Roland Barthes has analyzed the iconography of
Harcourt in "L'Acteur d'Harcourt" in Mythologies, It seems however, that this text was not
selected in sorne of the English versions of Mythologies.
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• 36. George Hurrell. Marion Daviu. 1938.

George HurrelL Sheri/yn Fmn. 1993.

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elegance, authority amounted to something apparently similar but
fundamentally different" (Berger. 1972: 146). In their essence, Glamour
photographs promoted a fundamentaUy hyper-feminine representation of
women, but more importandy, inaugurared and capitalized on the reign of
umanufacrured" beauty. As Frances Borzello, Annette Kuhn, Jill Pack and
Cassandra Wedd point out in "Living DoUs and 'Real Women"':
A good dea1 of che groomed beaucy of che women of the glamour porcraits cornes from the fact
chat chey are 'made-up' in che Immediate sense chat cosmetics have been applied co their- bodies in
order co enhance their existing qualicies. Buc chey are also 'made-up' in che sense chat the
images, rather chan the women, are put cogecher-, construcced, even fabricaced or- falsified in the
sense chat we might say a scory is made up if it is a fiction. (Borzello and al, 1985: 13).
Today, as Gilles Lipovetsky argues, the idea of the esthetically perfect woman
is being embodied by supermodels and, in spire of all the th[ngs that separare
them from movie stars, such as the fact that models are only supposed to be
"professional beauties," these twO idealistic figures of femineity have ln
cornmon the fact that their perfection in photographs is the product of an
extraordinary work of rnetamorphosis (Lipovetsky. 1997: 182). In this sense,
supermodels are a continuation of the artificial Hollywood pructices. Models
are, just as movie stars were, neither unreal nor fictious: they are, in
Lipovetsky's words urecomposed and surreal" (Lipovetsky, 1997: 182).
However. if during the golden age of HoUywood, consrructed images of
apparently seamless perfection were the result of skiUed professionals of
appearance (photographers, make-up artist, hairdresser and stylists) and of basic
photographic manipulation (studio lights, filrers, airbrushing and retouching),
nowadays, they are rather the fruit of the work of the magicians of the virtual
eca.
With a technology such as Scitex, if needed, models' faces can be
compIecely restrnctured: lips can be made thinner or thicker, cheekbones might
be moved higher, ears may shrink, and rnouths may widen. Hair color or style
cao be changed, become more lustrous, and stray hair removed. Eyes may move,
change color, their irises become more brilliant, and their whires whiter.
Necks, arms and legs may lengthen. Picture editors and art directors aIso
casually manipulace skin tone, eradicate wrinkles and blemishes, scrape off
excess fat, and erase even basic human characreristics such as pores, bags under
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the eyes, or veins. Moreover, with such practices, models might find chat they
have miraculously lost weighr in various places... and gained it in others. For
Mary Tannen, author of an article entitled "That Scitex Glow," such retouching
of female models is a clear sign of cultural rejection of the realities of
women's bodies (Tannen, 1994: 44).
COMPUTER-ASSISTED FRANKEN5TEINS
Moreover, digital image-processing rechnology allows very complex and
sophisticated manipulations, undetectable by the naked eye. The results are often
totally unrealistic, belonging tO Baudrillard's third order of the image. One of
the most common procedures, is known as "zipper heads" or "pasties" (Alter,
1990: 45 and Wian, 1998: HREF). Very similar in their principle to early
photomontages, they consist of grafring someone's head, usually a famous
person's, onto someone else's body, usually an anonymous model's, using
compurer graphics programs. Exrensis Mask Pro 2.0 is one of these programs.
A leading professional masking sofrware for Adobe Photoshop and Corel
Phoro-Paint, it allows to creare "masks" (a selected porrion of an image that
will be grafted onto another picrure) with dean edges (see figure 37).
The procedure was for example used by the distributors of the movie Pretty
\Y7oman for a publicity poster. The perfection featured on the image was
literally composed, with the head of the film's star, Julia Roberts, implanred
onto the seductively posed body of Shelley Michelle, a body double for many
celebrities (~fitchell, 1992: 209 and Inrerner Movie Database, see figure 38). In
1989, the relevision program magazine TV Guide used the same quicker-andless-
painful-than-surgery method to produce their alluring cover picture of a
conspicuously slender Oprah Winfrey, glamourously seated on a pile of
money. To obtain this cover the talk show host was simply embodied as actress
Ann-Margret (see figure 39). The deception was discovered when the actress'
husband noticed a familiar ring on one of ·Winfrey"s fingers (Mitchell, 1992:
209). Even though the picture may not have been the result of digital
manipulation, as sustained by Wired contributor Jacques Leslie who says that the
image was not a photograph, but the drawing of an arrise who used a photograph
of Ann-Margret's as a reference, readers might not have caught the subrle trick
and rhe magazine never mentioned the illustration as a composite (leslie, 1995: 113).
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RICIL\RU f;F.IU·: JU.U RORI-:RTS
37. Advertisernent for Extensis M3Sk Pro 2.0. 1999.
38. Pos[er for the movie Prtrty \VUmal1. 1989.
39. AP Photo/files. ~Oprah Winfrey! The Richest Wornan on TV?~ TV Gllid~. August 26. 1989. Digital photomontage.
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For William Mitchell, such practices are meant to "present women as desirable
boy coys" (Micchell, 1992: 204). And, as he observes in The Reconfigllred Eye:
"The incegral female subject is reconscrucced as stereocyped sexual objecc"
(Micchell, 1992: 204).
A place where interchangeable heads have almost become a tradition as
weIl as an example of women presenced as men's object of fancasy, is on the
Internet. As digital manipulacion techniques are becoming more and more
accessible, cheap and easy co use, virtually anyone is given the possibilicy to
realize home-made montages, pasting the head of one's favorite celebricy onto a
naked body. The resule can chen be disseminaced, rapidly and uncontrollably,
ehrough the network. Therefore ic is noc surprising thae web sites featuring
allegedly "nude" photographs of popular media figures are proliferating 44 . The
fakes range from simple nudes co sexually-explicic photographs. An entire
usenec subculture, <alt.binaries.pictures.nude.celebrities.fake>, is even dedicaced
tO poseing chese real and fake images, while another subculcure is devoted to
expose the less obvious fakes (Law Street JOI/mal, 1998: HREF). In addition,
many web sites such as "The Celebricies Naked Pasties Web Sice"
«hctp://www.celebcicynaked.com» or "SCOtt's Fake Nude Celebrity Ga11eries"
«hctp://sCOttss.com», specialize in archiving these fakes. Such use of digital
technologies is clearly an abuse of celebrities' rights over copyrighted material 45
, but it is also an abusive use of digiral technology which rends ro suggesr thar
people are just a sum of features and body parts put together, a notion which is
reminiscent of the genre of glamour precedently discussed. As we have seen
earlier, Borzello and her colleagues write about glamour in their essay "Living
Do11s and 'Real Women'." However, in the passage from the essay below, it is
cempcing co substitute che cerm Uglamour" with the word Udigital":
Glamour phocography is very much open co che cricicism thac, at che same time as ic holds out
44 Internet industry estimaces place the 1998 revenues for celebricy nude sites at about $185
million. It is, reportedly the fastest-growing segment of che online adult industry business
(Law Street Jou77101 (1998, May 1), <hctp://www.lawscr:eec.com/journallarc980501brief.hcm1».
45 The law is rather unc1ear when it cornes co phocomoncages and few cast;S have gone to court.
Nevertheless, on December 23, 1998, a federal judge ordered a webmascer co pay 5230,000 co
actress Alyssa Milano for publishing nude photographs of her on che Internet, without her
permission. Many of the phocographs were "pascies," whereas other where still frames from
movies in which the accress appeared naked. This is believed co be che first decision of ics kind
(Brunker, 1998: HREF). As the market fo[' celebrities' nude is growing (Webmascers charge up
co $30-a-monch the access co these pictures), Web sice operarors are more an more tempced tO
create customized nudes. Therefore, even artists who have never gone unclothed, can find
chernselves in a sexually explicit posicion on che Internet.
tOO

• idealized images, in pareicular of women, it also promoees che ideal woman as being put

eogether, composed of surfaces and defined by appearance. It is here that che glamour tradicion
in ail ics manifestations may be seen ta occupy a place dangerously dose co anocher cradition of
represencation of women, from myth co fairy cale ro high art ta pornography, in which chey are
stripped of iU and autonomy_ Woman is dehumanised by being represenced as a kind of
aucomaron, a 'living doU': The Sleeping Beauty, Coppélia, L'Histoire d'O, 'She's a real doU!'
(Borzello and al., 1985: 13-4).
If techniques are changing, it seems that intentions are evedasting.
DECONSTRUCTING IMAGES OF WOMEN
Reality leaves a lot ta be desired... - Abel Gance, filmmaker

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Digital manipulation and retouching involve a very imponant component which
1 have not discussed so far: the intention of its author. As we have seen earlier, _
the myth of photographie rruch has been based in part on the modernist belief
that "the camera never lies;" that it was an instrument of neutral recording.
Therefore, the manipulation of an image, should it involve digital or simple
darkroom retouching, deady indicates an incention of its author, a desire to
change a certain representacion of reality by interfering with ic. As a
consequence, the manipulation of photographs gives a new dimension co the
debares over [he concept of authorship. For postmodernist theoriscs, seeking out
an authors' intention is pointless and Roland Barthes proclaimed "The Deach of
che Author" in his notorious 1968 essay. For him, che author is dead in the
sense chac s/he is no longer responsible for the meaning of his/her work and as
a resulc, che reader becomes the key elemenc in controlling the textual meaning.
Neverrheless, the face thac these photographs are intentionally manipulated gives
chem a definitive connotacive aspect chat can be "read." In a way, one can argue
chat digital photographs are closer to text chan analog ones. Literally, they can
be read as a succession of ones and zeros while on a more theoretical level, the
manipulations can be considered as a kind of "edicing" or "rewriting." Because
of chis very characteristic, 1 believe that these images, manipulated on purpose,
can be read and can tell us a loc about our culture as they represent, with the
appearance of reality, what those who manipulate them value and fear. In a
sense, these manipulations allow us to demonsrrate the semiotics of
photography. Photo-manipulation is more chan jusc using a given cechnology,
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and che way ic is used can help understand photographie representation as weil
as the values of our society. As Mitchell remarks, the emergence of digital
imaging is an exciting "opportunicy to expose che aporias in photography's
construction" as it allow us to "deconstruct the very ideas of photographic
objectivicy and closure" and "resist what has become an increasingly sclerotic
pictorial tradition" (Mitchell, 1992: 8). In his words, "che cools of digital
imaging [are} felicitously adapted ta the diverse projects of our poscmodern
era" (Mitchell, 1992: 8).
r believe ic is particulady relevant at this point to introduce the concept
of the "myth," as Roland Barthes has defined ie in one of his most celebrared
early works, 1957 Mythologies46 . Mythologies, which consists of a series of
journaliseic articles originally written for the magazine Les Lettres nouvelles
beeween 1954 and 1956 coupled with a theoretical essay: "Myth Today," is a
book concerned with che meanings of the signs thac surround us in our everyday
lives. lc is a study of the ways in which mass culture, which Barthes sees as
controlled by the "petite bourgeoisie," construccs a mychological reality and
encourages conformity to its own values. As he wrires in the preface ta the 1970
edition of iW.ythologies: "r had just read Saussure and as a result acquired the
conviction that by treating 'collective representations' as sign-systems, one
might hope ta go further than the pious show of unmasking them and account in
detaif for the mystification which uansforms petit-bourgeois culture inco a
universal nature" (Barthes, 1970: 9). Even if Barthes was concerned co analyze
the myths circulating in the France of che postwar period 47 , iHythologies is still
relevant taday since its author believes that it is important co expose signs as the
artificial constructs that they are. To sum it IIp, Barthes is interesred in the
linguiscic sign as in the application of linguistics tO the non-verbal signs that
exist around us in our everyday life. What makes this theory so exciting is the
possibility of applying the methodology to the domain of culture defined in its
broadest and most inclusive sense.
As Richard Appignanesi and Chris Garratt humorously sum up the content of
the book: "Anything in culture can be decoded - not just literature but fashion,
46 In Structuralism and Sim:e, John Scurrock caUs Mythologies Barthes' "mosc ferociously anribourgeois
book" and labels ir "devasraring" (Srurrock, 1979: 53).
47 It is inreresting to nore that one of the importane: development in the postwar years in France
was the growing populariry of weekly and monchly magazines, parriculady those aimed ac a
predominantly female readership, such as Elle (founded in 1945), Marie-France, Marie-Claire and
Femmes d'aujourd'hui. Publications like these interesred and irritated Barthes. He even wenc so
far as ro describe Elle as a "real mythological treasure" (Barthes: 1970, 78).
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wrestling, strip tease, steak and chips, love, photography and even ]apan
Incorpocated" (Appignanesi and Garratt, 1995: 74).
What 1 propose ta do in this section is examIne, ln a Barrhesian
perspective, the use of digital recouching in women's maga.zines. What interests
me here is to discuss not 50 much the unrealistic representacion of women, but
instead what each alter:ation says about our society. Put simply, 1 shaH try to
understand how digital imaging rechnology is used on phocographs of women
and what it ceveals about our culture.
PUR5UIT OF ETERNAL YOUTH, FEAR OF DEATH,
AND DI5MI55AL OF BIOLOGY
One of the most common, aimost systematic, aiterations performed on
phocographs of women is the erasing of wrinkles. What is ironie, while not
surprising, is that photos of men are far less likely co gec major retouching as
compared to images of women. W rinkles and stubble are often consideced ta
add character co a man's face... but when it cornes co the opp·osite sex, it is very
different... (Street Cents Online). As Bob Ciano, once art director of Lift
magazine, daims: "No picture of a woman goes unretouched... even a wellknown
(older) woman who doesn't wan! tO be recouched... U'e still persist in trying
to make her look like she's in her fifties" (Wolf, 1990: 82, my emphasis).
For feminist Naomi \Volf, the issue of rerouching photographs is not a
uivial one. According tO her, "it is about the mosc fundamental freedom: che
freedom to imagine one's own future and co be proud of one's own life."
"Airbrushing age off women' faces," she writes "has the same policical echo
that would resound if aU positive images of blacks were routinely lighcened"
and "to airbrush age off a woman's face it tO erase women's identity, power,
and history" (Wolf, 1990: 83). As a matter of fact, the avoidance to show
wrinkles and other signs of aging, is a clear dismissai of hurnan biology. In the
light of recent advances in the domains of biotechnology or even arrificial
procreation, it is not tao absurd to argue that there is an undeniable aspiration ta
control nature and that digital imaging is just whar may be the mosr
"superficial" manner to achieve this objective.
The alterations performed on images of women are dosely linked ta
fantasies of rejuvenation and agelessness. They disdose the importance America
attaches ta appearance and youch. As Lucy Sisman acknowledges it in Mary
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Tannen's article "That Scitex Glow," the hyperclean looks seems to be
primarily an American obsession (Tannen, 1994: 44). Baudrillard even staced in
his book America, chough in anocher concext, that ··Americans may have no
identiry, but they do have wonderful teech" (Baudrillard, 1988: 34).
Nevertheless, what needs to be noced here is the close relationship berween che
photograph and death. This therne has been developed in depth by Barthes in
several articles and especially in Camera Lucida. In an interview made prior to
the publication of the book, for instance, Barthes said:
If phocography is co be discussed on a serious 1eve1, ic musc be described in relacion co deach.
Ic's crue chac a phocograph is a wicness, buc a wicness of someching chac is no more. Even if che
person in che piccure is scill alive, ic's a momenc of chis subjecc's existence chat was
phocographed, and chis momenc is gone. This is an enormous crauma for humanicy, a crauma
endless1y renewed. Each reading of a photo and chere are billions worldwide in a day, each
percepcion and reading of a photo is imp1icicly, in a repressed ma..îner, a concmct wich whac has
ceased co exist, a comracc wich deach (Bart:hes, 1985: 356).
Talking about Barthes' latest work, Ron Burnerr remarks in Cl/ft/Ires of Vision:
"Much of the book is governed by an emphasis on death - the deach of his
rnother, che death of phocography as a form of culcural expression, che death of
che incerprecer" (Burnetc, 1995: 33). In Camera Ltlcida Barthes rernarks: "By
giving me che absoluce past of che pose (aorist), che phorograph cells me deach
in che future" (Barthes, t 981: 96). For him: "It is because each phorograph
always concains chis imperious sign of my future death thac each one, however
acrached co be co che exciced world of che living, challenges each of us, one by
one, outside of any generality (but not outside of any transcendence)" (Barthes,
1981: 97). Wich respect to what Barthes is saying, l would like co remark chac
by feacuring younger-Iooking, and especially digitally-rejuvenated men and
women in magazines, this "imperious sign" might be lessened, as the signs of
aging, associated with death, are removed.
In an essay entitled "The Leech Woman's Revenge: On the Dread of
Aging ln a Low-Budgec Horror Film," Vivian Sobchack examines low-budget
horror films from the late 1950s through the early 1960s and demonstraces
how movies such as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (958), The Wasp Woman
(1959), and The Leech Woman (1960), "unravel our culture's complicated
response co aging women." For Sobchack, chis response is based on fear and
loathing. She remarks that in chese movies women are portrayed as both scary
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and scared. For Sobchack, their scariness has "less to do with sexual desire and
castration anxiety than with abjection and death." As she quotes from The Leech
Women: "For a man, old age has rewards. If he is wise, his gray hairs bring
dignicy and he is treared with honor and respect. Buc for the aged woman, there
is nothing. At best, she's pitied. More often, her lot is of contempt and
neglect." Sobchack brings up anorner important point when she remarks how
"increasingly rechnologized quotidian life of our culture" has become and
argues that the current ideal body is the "ageless ·hard body' of the ·cyborg'"
(Sobchack, HREF). This statement, about the current ideal body, reminded me
of the images of fashion photographer Seb Janiak, in the French edition of Elfe
magazine, in January 1997 (figure 40). These pictures, which unsurprisingly
illusrrated an article on cosmetic surgery, were momentous, showing a bold
Naomi Campbell covered from head to toe in silver paint. ]aniak, well-known
for his work with computer-imaging technique, '·only" adjusred sorne colors
and digitally smoothed the moders skin to obtain the metallic finish. A small
caption at the bottom of the opening photograph read: "Beautifu!... To what
point? When fantasies of perfection are almost science fiction" (Elfe, 1997: 92).
1 believe these pictures' meaning is dramatically increased by the context in
which they are used. ~t is important to recall here that context is an important
part of a photograph since it is what gives the image most of its meaning,
helping us cornprehend what i t depicts. In the essay "Context as a Determinant
of Photographic Meaning," John A. Walker states che imporcance of concext in
the attribution of a meaning to a phowgraph and argues that images do not have
a stable meaning on their own. As he wrices: "With each shife of location che
photograph is recontextlla/ized and as the context changes 50 does the meaning"
(Walker, 1980:54). The "Digital Naomi" picture, used in different
circumstances, such as on the caver of American Photo ta illustrate a subject on
"The Digital Revolution," is to sorne extent less cornpeUing, since it is not
textually associated with plastic surgery (see figure 41).
In addition, it is interesting to note that if E//e's beauty editors christened
Campbell a "cybergid," the superrnodel, when shown her portrait, is reported
to have declared: "Wow! 1 look like a robod" (<http://www.pathfinder.com/
Life/eisies/1998/cat01f03.html». This is a provocative thought, considering
what Naomi Wolf was writing in her controversial book The Beauty Myth,
105
almost a decade ago, in 1990:
The speccer of the future is not chat women will be slaves. but thac we will be mbocs4 8 • First.
we will be subservienr CO ever more refined cechnology for self-surveillance (...) Theo, co
more sophîscicated aicerations of images of the "ideal~ in the media: "Virtual realiry" and
"photographie re-imaging" will make "perfection" increasingly surreal. Then. tO technologies
that replace the fauIry, morcai female body, piece by piece, with che "perfect" artifice (Wolf.
1990: 267).
Without necessarily being so pessimistic about women's future, there is
a need to assess the realities of our capitalist society to explore fully its
imagery. The diet and cosmetic surgery industries have been accused of
exploiting and capitalizing on the unrealistic images of beauty promored by the
media. In the United States, millions of women spend billions of dollars in the
quest for the ideological body and the market of the products supposed to help
in attaining chis ideological body is massive and unending. In 1996. the weight
10ss inciusrry. alone, was estimated to ge~erate in the United States an
impressive $33 billion in revenue; a threefo1d increase in 1ess than thirty years
(People, 1996: 71). Moreover, in the meantime, the market for plastic surgery
deve10ped into a $5-billion-a-year industry and is increasing1y considered parr
of the natural order of things for women49 • As Kathryn Pauly Morgan wrires:
Noc only is elecrive plascic surgery moving ouc of che domain of the sleazy, che suspicious, che
secrecively deviant. or che pachologicaily narcissistic, it is becoming the norm. This shifc is
leading co a predicrable inversion of the domains of che devianc and che pathological, 50 chac
women who conremplare not /Ising cosmetic surgery will increasingly be scigmacized and seen as
deviant... (Morgan, 1991:148).
With a culture re1endessly pursuing and 1iterally obsessed by an ideal of
evedasting youth, it is not surprising that women try to emulate these images
by virtually aIl means necessary and through operations such as facelifts.
augmentation mammoplasty (breast enlargement), mastopexy (breast lift),
48 An uncredired variant of Eric Fromm's quoce "The danger of che pasc is chat men become
slaves. The danger of the future is chac men become robots." (in The Sane Society).
49 1 would like co mention here che work of Kachy Davis who opposed the common argument
chac women who undergo surgery are "nothing more than misguided or deluded viccims"
(Davis, 1997: 168). Rather, she daims thac plascic surgery can impcove women's assertiveness.
In addition, for her. more chan che effec:: of the aet icself, it is the decision to take this aet whieh
is empowering for these women. Davis has studied che reasons, choices and positions regarding
plastic surgery in Re.rhaping the Female Body: The Dilemma of Cosmetic Slirgery (1995, New York:
Roudedge).
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abdominoplasry (tummy tuck), liposuction , rhinoplasry (nose job), browlifts,
blepharoplasry (eyelid surgery), etc. It is as if American women felt defined as
inadequate against the ideal unattainable female object of beauty promoted by
the mass media and needed to compensate for not "being born with it."
As sorne have observed, our Western culture is constantly emphasizing
looks and appearance, ewo notions based primarily on youth. Jean Baudrillard,
for instance, writes in America: "The body has been made to forget pleasure as
present grace, to forget its possible metamorphosis into other forms of
appearance and become dedicated to the utopian preservation of a youth that is,
in any case, already lose" (Baudrillard, 1988: 35). According to Baudrillard,
the pursuit of the youthful body indicates one's anticipation of death and fear of
failure (Baudrillard, 1988: 35). Today, the preservation of the body is being
achieved mosdy chrough technology and in a sense, Phocoshop "surgery" used
in magazines can be considerated as the vireual equivalent to plastic surgery.
NEGATION OF INDIVIDUALITY
Another interesting aspect of recouching, and chis is true especially for fashion
and advertising phocography, is che erasing of any trace chat can suggesc
individualicy. In a society which pretends co ignore and sometimes even favor
differences, use of digital recouching co erase any distinctive signs such as scars,
moles - except, of course, for sorne supermodels whose distinctive signs have
beccme their trademark - or taCtoOS off the bodies and faces of models
suggests just the opposite. Everyching chat suggests individuality is removed.
As Sara Halprin notes, the range of the images of women in the media 15
extremely narrow, "much narrower than the range of men's images" (Halprin,
1995: 253).
As ie has been widely acknowledged, the image of women in the media is
definitely not representative of women's diversity (race, color, size, weight,
etc). The most fascinating however, is that retouching is performed on models
who are supposed to fit in the narrow range determined by editors and
advertisers in the first place. Nevertheless, even these women do get retouched
to fit the unnaeurallvirrual ideal promoted by our society.
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CULTURE OF CLEANLINESS AND WILL Ta CONTROL
FinallY7 1 would like to point out the esthetic element involved in photomanipulation
and the will to control it conveys. In her article on computermanipulated
photographic imagery, Martha RosIer states thar "The rational is
that visual appeal and cleanliness (50 to speak) of images, not photographic
accuracy, are the criteria in these uses" (RosIer, 1996: 41). The "necessity" tO
offer readers a visually pleasing coyer is in most of the cases the main reason
behind retouching. This practice reflects the obsession of our culture with
immaculate perfection.
As a matter of fact, a recent faux pas from French magazine Paris l'vIatch
perfecrly illuscrates chis last statement. Indeed, when the editors of the weekly
magazine wanted co feature on the coyer a photograph of Princess Caroline of
Monaco with her then potential future husband Ernst-August of Hanover
atrending a party and none of the pictures they had would illusrrate propedy the
"chemistry" between the two of them, they simply decided tO create what
should have been the perfect shot. If they did utilize one of the pictures at their
disposaI, it did noc happen wichout sorne modifications: they erased an intruding
persan who came in between the pair and moved them closer cogether. The final
picture presented che image of two smiling persans apparently pleased to pose
foc the camera (see figure 42). Othee European magaZines published
photographs of the event that were less blatantly manipulated (see figure 43).
This case, very similar in its inoention co che Giza pyeamids episode, is not in
its essence a lie: the rwo persans were there together and it is highly probable
chat ac sorne moment they may have been doser ta each other and che
photograph could have existed without any manipulation. However, even ehough
the "picture perfect" image did not exise, Paris j'rfatch still wanred co offee its
readers a compelling coyer (one that would sell better). A month later, after
the alreration was revealed, the editors justified their decision. In a kind of Mea
Culpa, in which they swore not to manipulate another photograph without
informing their readers, theyexplained chat according to them: "The cove[' of
Paris Match has to meet a certain eschetics, cerrain criteLions of balance and
plastic beauty." They stated furthe[' that for "evident esthetica! reasons," they
accepted generally the idea of pe['forming touch ups on movie stars,
supermodels, even evenrually even on political leaders. As they argue, for
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•• 42. DR/Phoro wOfficiel: Ernst reçu à Monaco.~ Paris Afatch, No. 2550. April 9, 1.998

43. DR/Phoro. WCaroline ofMonaco and Ernst August of Hanover. Bllnte's and Oggi's covers. April 1.998.
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many photographers retouching is considered as part of the art of photography
(Paris Match, 1998: 99). Nevertheless, Jacques Clayssen summarizes perfectly
(and bluntly) the current situation when he observes chat the pages of magazines
are invaded bya "virtually antiseptic cleanliness" (Clayssen, 1996: 75).
1 12.
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CONCLUSION
The resldrs of the invention cannat, even remotely, he seen - but al! experience, zn matters of
philf)sophical discovery, teaches liS that, in SIIch disco very, it is the unforeseen upan which u:e must
calculate most largely. It is a theort!111 a/most de11lonstrated, that the consequences of allY new scientific
invention will, at the present day exceed, by very nmch, the wildest expecrations of the most imaginative.
- Edgar Allan Poe, -The Daguerrocype," 1840.
Throughout this paper, several aspects of photography have been examined.
First, a brief technical history of the medium has shown that photography
happened to be invented in 1839 - even though the components of the process
had been known for quire sorne time - and was the result of a cultural desire
co fix the shadows of the camera obscura. Then, ie was demonstrared that the
photographic image has been historically, technically and socio-culeurally
constructed as an exact, truthful rendering of reality. However, as we have seen
in chapter ewo, the modern idea of photographic truth has been contradicted by
the history and the theory of the medium. Nevertheless, the belief in the truth
effect of phocography has remained a popular one, based in great parc on its
referential characteristic, Barthes' "that-has-been."
However, the introduction of digital imaging technologies in the 1980s
and especially the recent progress made in the field, seerns co mark the end of
the privileged status of the photographie image and many theorists and criries
are announcing the death of the medium. As ie has been explained in chapter
three, the specificities of the new technology - speed, ease of use, availability,
and low cost, coupled with endless possibilities tO alter seamlessly
photographic images - increases the cases of altered photographs. In addition,
the capacities offered by digital-imaging technology are fundamentally
challenging photography's central concept of the referent. Indeed, one of the
most important aspects of the technology is its ability to create, with the
appearance of the real, representaeions of events, persons or things. This
potential signifies the beginning of a new wodd of representation, or as
Baudrillard would refer tO ie, a world of simulation. As we have seen ln
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chapcer four chrough che example of women's magazines, che manner in which
cechnology is used emphasizes che nocion of che simulacrum: the images we are
presented wich have no basis in realiry.
A hundred and sixry years afcer the invencion of photography by Talbot
and Daguerre, che progress made in the field of compucer-generated images has
created a new wodd of representation, in which the operacors of the virrual era
multiply the ways co manipulate our percepcion of realicy. As we have seen
throughout this rhesis, digical rechnology is modifying whac we see in the media
and edited reality is everywhere: on billboards, in magazines, tabloïd
newspapers and, of course, in advertisemenc. Life seems to become an
ïmpossibly perfect model - almost always digitally recouched, smooched ouc
and airbrushed - making the images we consume in our culture, literally
highly manipulated. In chapcer four, we have seen how the rechnology is used
co alter che representation of women, constructing images that have no basis in
realicy. Therefore, what needs to be realized is chat cechnology is used to
promore a certain image chat has nothing co do with reality, but rather with the
standards of our culture. As we have seen, there is a human will co control and
manipulate representations of reality. We have tO be warned against the
cernptation of the universe of simulation, where attempts co expedice life
through technology can result in a graduaI imprisonment.
With the advent of electronic imaging we have moved a srep further into
simulation, but most importantly we enjoy it, fascinated that we seem co be by
technol.ogical advancements and the so-called "digital revolution." As several
theorists remarked it, our era seerns co be accracred by virtual worlds. In 1843,
in the preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity, Ludwig
Andreas Feuerbach (1804-72) already observed thac his time "prefers che sïgn to
che ching signified, the copy to the original, representacion co reality, the
appearance co the essence... illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness
is held ta be enhanced in proportion as troth decreases and illusion increases, so
that the highest degree of illusion cornes co he che highest degree of sacredness" (in
Debord, 1967: HREF).
In che 1970s, Susan Sontag scressed the role of the photographic medium co
emphasize this situation in On Photography: "The powers of photography have ln
effecc de-Placonized our understanding or reality, making it less and less
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plausible to reflect upon our experience according to the distinction between
images and things, between copies and originals" (Sontag, 1973: 179).
Furthermore, writing about digital culture and the internet in Lift on the
Screen, Sherry Turkle suggest, more than a century and a half later after
Feuerbach made his famous remark, that "we are moving towards a culture of
simulation in which people are increasingly comfortable with substituring
representation of reality for the real" (Turkle, 1995: 23). Douglas Crimp,
managing editor of October, an art journal known for its use of posrructuralist
theories, stresses similar concern aboue the present situation when he states:
"Our experience is governed by piccures, pictures in newspapers and magazines,
on television and in the cinema. Next to these pictures, first hand experience
begins co retreat, to seem more and more trivial" (in Trodd, 1998: 95).
As Arthur and Marilouise Kroker warn us in their essay "Code Warriors:
Bunkering in and Dumbing Down:"
Phocography, cinema, TV, and che internet are successive scages in vircualizacion. Beginning wich
the simulacrum of che first phorograph, continuing with the scanner imaging-system of TV, and
concluding (for the momenc) with the data archives of the Internet, human experience is fastdumped
inco the relays and networks of virtual culture. McLuhan was wrong. It is not the
cechnological media of communication as an extension of man, bue che human species a
humiliared subject of digital culture (Kroker, 1996: HREF).
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Gemma Frisius. Drawing of a Camera Obscura. Gemsheim Collection. Ausdn, Texas.
2. Nicéphore Niépce. View From The Windaw At Gra.r. circa 1827. Heliograph. Gemheim Collection.
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3. T.-H. Maurissee. La Daguemotypomanie. 1840. Lithograph. Gisèle Freund archives.
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5. Eadweard Muybridge. Galloping Horse. 1878. Albumen princ. George Eascman House, Rochescer,
N.Y.
6. Unknown Phorographer. Alice and the Fairies. Brochereon Collection. Leeds Universiry Library.
7. Unknown phorographer. Reverend Tu'eedle and Spirits. Phocography Collection. Harry Ransom
Humanities Research Center. The Universiry of Texas at Austin.
8. Camille Silvy. River Seene, France. 1858. Gold-coned albumen prinr from ewo collodion-on-glass
negacives.
Gustave Le Gray. The Great Wave - Cette. 1856. Combination albumen princ. Collecrion Paul F.
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9. Oscar Gustave Rejlander. The Two Way.r of Lift. 1857. Combinarion albumen prinr. The Royal
Phoeographic Sociery, Bath, England.
Henry Peach Robinson. Fading Au~y. L858. Combinaeion albumen print. George Eastman House,
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10. John Heartfield. Gleiche Briider Gleiche Morder. Photomonrage. Kent Gallery. New York.
Lazlo Moholy-Nagy. Jealou.ry. 1927. Phocomontage and ink. George Eastman House, Rochester. N.Y.
1L Harry Schunk. Yt'er Klein: Leap into The Void. 1960. Gelatin-silver princ.
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13. Unknown photographer. Lenin's addres.r to a crowd. May 5, 1920. 1920. Before and after rerouching.
14. "US Senator Millard Tydings (right) and communise leader Earl Browder (lefe)." 1951. Composite.
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15. Dorothea Lange. Migrant Mother. 1936. Gelatin-silver princ. The Museum of Modem Arc, New York.
16. AlI: Dorothea Lange. "Migranc agricultural worker's family. Seven children without food. Morher
aged 32. rather is a narive Californian. March 1936." Library of Congress, Washington. D.C
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18. Paul HigdonlNYT Pictures. "Sylvesrer Scallone and Groucho Marx at Yalta."
19. "Light! Camera! Action!" Time. 1998.
20. Esqllire. April 1998.
21. "Batrered Nicole: Photos taken by her sister show how O.J. bear her up:· National Enqllirer. 1995.
22. "Egypt's Desert of Promise." National Geographie. February 1982.
23. "An American Tragedy". Time. June 27. 1994. Pharo-illusrration by Matt Mahurin.
24. O.J. Simpson's mug short Los Angeles Police Departmenr.
25. 'Trail of Blood". NeU'su·eek. June 27. 1994. Phoco by Los Angeles Police Departmenc.
26. "Fire on lce~. New York Neu'Sday. February 16. 1994.
27. "Digital Forgery Can Create Photographie Evidence for Events chat Never Happened··. Sâentifie
Ameriean. Feb. 1994. Computer arr by Jack Harris/ Visual Lagic.
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29. "The New Face of America". Time. Special issue FaU 1993. voL 142. no. 21. Phorographs for Tif/le
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30. Hiro."An Exrraordinary Image of Great American Beaury". Mirahel/a. September 1994.
31. Visual Science Laboracory. "Kyoko Dace, che first 'vireual idor-. 1996.
32. Keith Cottingham. Untirled (Single). Untitled (Dollble). Untir/ed (Triple) from the Fit:titiou.r Portrait.r
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33. "What Michelle Pfeiffer Needs... Is Absolurely Nothing". Esquire. December 1990. DigiCllly recouched.
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35. Moisei Nappelbaum. Stalin. 1924 and 1939.
36. George HurrelL Marion Davier. 1938. Sheri/yn FOIn. 1993.
37. Advertisemenc for Excensis Mask Pro 2.0. 1999.
38. Poster for the movie Pretty Woman. 1989.
39. AP Phoro/files. "Oprah Winfrey! The Richest Woman on TV?" TV Guide. Augusr 26, 1989. Digiral
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40/1. Seb JaniaklCrearive Exchange Agency. Digital Naomi. 1997. Originally produced for Stern/Konr
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42/3. DR/Phoco "Officiel: Ernst reçu à Monaco." Paris J\Cauh. No. 2550. April 9. 1998. Blmte,Oggi,
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