Saturday, May 24, 2008

Is That Really Me?

There are many progams now that can change the way you look. It can make you look younger, smaller, taller, skinnier or however you want to look like. Even if it doesn't look like you anymore. Why do poeple want to change themselves to look a certain way. It's not like you look like that for real, so what's the point.

Photo Manipulation is starting to go the wrong way. Sometimes you can't even tell if the picture you are looking at is real or not. Photo journalists are suppose to tell the truth with their pictures, but once you changed the picture, it's a lie. "...journalists should not intentionally deceive their audience." If you are going to change the photo make sure it is clear why you are doing this and where. The audience can easily be misleaded and make up their own opinions about the picture.

In the summer 1994, two magazines came out with a photo of O.J Simpson's mug shot on the cover of their magazines. Time magazine had the mug shot darkened and Newsweek's was not changed. These pictues came out after the murder of Simpson's wife and her friend. James Gaines, the magaging editor of Time magazine said "The harshness of the mug shot- the merciless bright light, the stubble on Simpson's face, the cold specificity of the picture- had been subtly smoothed and shaped into an icon of tragedy. The expression on his face was not merely blank now; it was bottonless. This cover, with the simple, nonjudgmental headline
'An American Tragedy,' seemed the obvious, right choice."

Many people disagreed with Gaines. Major news orgainiations and black people argued that Time's picture was racist beacuse it made Simpson look more sinister, guilty and dangerous. I think it makes him look scarier compared to the other cover. Newsweek's cover makes him look innocent and less threating. Illustrator Matt Mahurin was the one who altered the image, saying later that he "wanted to make it more artful, more compelling." After all the controversy, Time took the first cover off and replaced it with another cover.

A more recent photo that was caught manipulated was by Liu
Weiqiang of the Daqing Evening News. It won many impressive
awards. The picture is made up of two different pictures. The antelopes and the train were never together. Weiqiang says that he never published the picture as a news photograph. Weiqiang also wrote in his blog, "I admit it's unfaithful, as well as immoral for a photographer to present a fabricated picture. I'm truly sorry."

Another photo I found that was altered was in Seventeen magazine. In the April 2008 issue, I found on page 18 at the bottom of the page that Hayden Panettiere's dress was shortened because she said she loved her to show off her legs. What I'm not uderstanding is that why didn't they just buy a shorter dress? Why not sew it shorter?

After viewing these cases I think it's just not worth manipulating pictures. It is not real and the audience is being misleaded.
Works Cited
Seventeen Magazine April 2008

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