This link has been bookmarked by 22 people . It was first bookmarked on 12 Aug 2008, by Rudy Garns.
-
14 Aug 08
-
13 Aug 08
-
We should remember that the power of photographs comes not only from their ability to copy reality, but also to alter reality. Photographs can be used — to borrow Heartfield’s phrase — as weapons. They can be used to warn us about the dangers of impending war. They can also be used to ratchet up the blind forces of rage and unreason that drag us into conflict.
photography photoshop psychology propaganda war news newspapers
-
-
Little Green Footballs (significantly, a blog and not a daily newspaper) provided evidence that the photograph had been faked.
-
there is a remarkable amount of information entering into our eyes and being processed by the brain. Now, the brain samples like a video camera, but 30 frames a second, high resolution, massive amounts of information.
-
But text is often brought in visually as well.
HANY FARID: Sure, but processed in a different part of the brain. So, yes, the visual system has to process it, but where it’s actually being processed is not in the back of the brain where the visual processing is, it’s on the side of the brain. It’s the language center, which is completely different.
-
You start putting it out there and saying, “Oh look, this picture? It’s a fake. This picture? It’s a fake.” But you know what people remember? They don’t remember, “It’s a fake.” They remember the picture. And there are psychology studies, when you tell people that information is incorrect, they forget that it is incorrect. They only remember the misinformation. They forget the tag associated with it.
-
It raises a whole other level of information warfare, right? You intentionally put things out there just to know that the controversy in and off itself will help you make your point.
-
If you want to trick someone with a photograph, there are lots of easy ways to do it. You don’t need Photoshop. You don’t need sophisticated digital photo-manipulation. You don’t need a computer. All you need to do is change the caption.
-
The photographs presented by Colin Powell at the United Nations in 2003 provide several examples. Photographs that were used to justify a war. And yet, the actual photographs are low-res, muddy aerial surveillance photographs of buildings and vehicles on the ground in Iraq. I’m not an aerial intelligence expert. I could be looking at anything. It is the labels, the captions, and the surrounding text that turn the images from one thing into another
-
All the dictators doctored photographs in order to effectively change history. So why is this a big deal? Is it because of the power of visual imagery, the fact that it resonates so much? Maybe that will change with the next generation. Maybe this new generation will be thinking about images differently. There is a savviness about what technology can do. Kids now are growing up in digital age where they routinely see doctored images in their mailboxes, in the media, on television, and so on and so forth.
-
People often trust low-res images because they look more real. But of course they are not more real, just easier to fake.
-
You never see a 10-megapixel photograph of Big Foot or the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness Monster. One explanation is: these monsters don’t exist. But if they did exist — so the thinking goes — they are probably unwilling to sit still for portraiture. The grainy images are proof of how elusive Nessie can be. This belief extends to documentary filmmaking, as well. If it’s badly shot, it’s more authentic.
-
There’s a remarkable story about the forging of the Hitler diaries. The forger was so prolific, he created so many forgeries — letters, watercolors, diaries, etc. — that handwriting analysts (charged with the task of authenticating the diaries) took writing examples done by the forger thinking they were genuine examples of Hitler’s handwriting and compared them to the diaries. They authenticated the diaries on that basis
-
The L.A. Times on their front page actually credit it to the Revolutionary Guard. I thought that was pretty ironic.
ERROL MORRIS: Ironic?
CHARLES JOHNSON: Well, it’s just very odd to see a photo on the cover of a major American newspaper that’s credited to one of our sworn mortal enemies. And I don’t think I’m the only one who finds that a bit disturbing.
-
there is something “true” about photography, at least photography that isn’t posed or Photoshopped. And in recent years, the mainstream press has embraced this orthodox view. The principle is straightforward. Zero tolerance. Allow no digital manipulation. No posing. If a photographer uses any one of a variety of Photoshop tools, fire him.
-
It’s not that I disagree with these rules. I don’t, but the development of Photoshop (1) can heighten our awareness of how a photograph can be manipulated, and (2) may inure us to all the other ways in which an image’s relationship to truth can be compromised. It allows the false assumption: if we can just determine that this photograph wasn’t Photoshopped, then it must be “true.”[14] But Photoshop serves as a reminder to us of something that we should have known all along: photographs can deceive
-
John Heartfield, one of the creators of photomontage in the 1920’s and 30’s (along with other representatives of Dada — Ernst, Hoch and Hausmann), employed the motto: “Use Photography as a Weapon.”
-
For Heartfield, lurking around every image is manipulation. The very real possibility that images can and will be used as propaganda even though no (chemical or digital) manipulation is involved.
-
We should remember that the power of photographs comes not only from their ability to copy reality, but also to alter reality. Photographs can be used — to borrow Heartfield’s phrase — as weapons. They can be used to warn us about the dangers of impending war. They can also be used to ratchet up the blind forces of rage and unreason that drag us into conflict.
-
An image can make us think that we were present at events that we have no direct experience of.
-
we try to assess the reliability of information, but with the swirl of information around us, there if often little opportunity to sort it into reliable, less reliable and totally unreliable information. It’s just a sodden mass of information.
-
Ludwig Wittgenstein in the “Philosophical Investigations”, section 265. It is “[a]s if someone were to buy several copies of the morning paper to assure himself that what it said was true.”
-
The Skeptic says, “Everybody believes it, but I’m not so sure I believe it;”
The Contrarian says, “Everybody believes it, so I think it’s probably false.
The Hyperbolic Contrarian says, “Everybody believes it, so it’s definitely false.
-
-
12 Aug 08
-
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.