"Photographic Truth"



This week in seminar we talked about the concept of "photographic truth", and how today in society, it's hard to tell whether or not a photograph is depicting a scene of truth, or whether or not it is a misleading photo. Above is an image compiled of many images from the Dove Evolution Ad that was on tv not to long, ago [On the side of the blog there are video links to watch it] This ad really tied into what we talked about, how easy it is for images to be miscontrued in our society, how all celebrities look perfect down to every eyelash. Through this ad you can see that society has changed the way an image is view, it no longer represents truth, like it did many years ago, its scary to think that they can be manipulated the way they do.
Another Example that comes to mind is when Jamie Lee Curtis decided to have her photographs taken for a magazine without having and photo retouching done to the photos. When this most people though it was gross, and unattractive for her to do this. Due to the fact that society has distorted the definiton of beauty, by photoshopping models in magazines to have the "perfect" and unattainable look.

To add on to this post from before, this week in lecture, I heard a new term that really captivated me, "Physiognomy" --the idea that a persons outward appearance can give insight into a person's personality [Hugh Welch Diamond] Back in the day, Diamond constructed this theory, and ended up making a project, taking pictures of patients at an asylum. It's interesting to think that back then this idea was considered feasable, how accurate and percise could they have thought there conclusiosn were. This ties back to the idea of photographic truth, how today looking at a photo you have no idea whether or not you are really looking at a correct representation of someone or something, whether or not it has been tampered with.

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