Photography was created in 1822 when the first photograph was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (pronounced “nyeps”). Photography was and still is seen as an art form as it is seen as drawing with light. Photography can be seen as an illusion as from the early days of photography in a dark room photographs have been manipulated to make them appealing or interesting, there has always been an idea that photography is theatrical as there has always been the element of people striking poses at the camera and the photographer zooming in and focusing on one thing and eliminating the other elements out of the photograph where for nearly all photographs have been manipulated, now a days we have technology which enables us to edit and manipulate our photographs even move editing things out, editing things in changes the photo and the dynamics completely which can make people question if there is an actual photograph which is true and doesn’t hide anything. Technology has developed so much in recent years there are generated images now which means people don’t even need to go out and take their own photos they are able to use apps and websites which have a code to create your images the benefits of artificial intelligence is that it can be a new form of creating art and photographs but on the other hand there can be some things of it which poses as a threat like the unrealistic ways it can pose ideologies around society and tings in general due to people seeing unrealistic things so often they won’t be able to tell what is ‘normal’ and what is real. Geoffrey Hinton resigned from his job at google as he was threatened by the power of ai as it could and does more harm than good. Photography can be seen as an illusion as all photos have been thought of each photographer has focuses on a main focal point for a reason on how they have envisioned the outcome of the image on the process of taking it and with modern technology things are edited in diverse ways to make it more appealing to the audience. 

Before the digital age of photography images were edited by manipulation which many people describe this is when photography lost its innocence, before the digital age images were edited by using dark room techniques which consisted of methods and techniques that involve manipulation directly to the print, such as retouching with ink, paint, airbrushing, or scratching Polaroids during developing (Polaroid art). Negatives can be manipulated while still in the camera using double-exposure techniques, or in the darkroom by piecing photos or negatives together. Some darkroom manipulations involved techniques such as bleaching to artfully lighten or totally wash out parts of the photograph, hand colouring for aesthetic purposes, or mimicking a fine art painting. 

The valley of the shadow of death is a photograph which is known for being manipulated in the early days of photography, it was considered the first “fake” photograph as the image content had been manipulated with the aim of conveying a different reality as to that which took place there photograph was taken by British photographer Roger Fenton in 1855 it was seen as the oldest photographs of warfare if it wasn’t manipulated. The photograph shows a desolate scene littered with cannonballs, some populating a ditch and some scattered along a stretch of road. The fact that this image was manipulated annoyed many people as it made people question the authenticity of photography and historical photos as they no longer trusted them as they did not know if they were real or not. In my opinion I believe that the image is really clearly done and it gives the audience a sense of what warfare was like but on the other hand I think it is wrong of the photographer to not have told anyone that it was a manipulated image and it was how he thought it would look like as he provided misleading information which has left people questioning not only photography and the truths about what a photo is but also history and if historians got this wrong and believed that it wasn’t a manipulated photo what does it say about other historical photographs.  

Since the digital age it has become easier to manipulate photos as technology has evolved so much that it is easy to edit photos quickly and make it look professional. It is easy to edit the truth as the editing process is so easy and so good that it makes it look real so people don’t know the truth and are constantly being shown fake things, photo manipulation changes the truth as you are able to make things smaller, larger, change the shape the list of things go on and on. Ai, has evolved in the fact that you now no longer have to take end edit photos to remove background to place them on a new image, the ai does it all for you and finds images by you just adding prompts to it, Dream Studio creates images for you give the website prompts on what you want in the image and then it creates it giving you multiple different options of the images. 

In my opinion a photograph can lie, and photographs have been lying for years from being edited in a dark room from now being able to edit them with a click of a button. These two photographs are great examples of photographs lying from looking at them without knowing the back story a person would believe that it is a fact of perfect timing and being in the right place at the right time is what captured these two amazing photos however it wasn’t the photo of the train was actually staged the photographer made the train reverse and stop multiple times to get the positioning of the building and the train perfect which in my opinion make the photo lie to the audience as to many people photography is about capturing the moment and the fact this photo may seem like it is capturing the moment is in fact now as it was staged. The second photo is in fact also staged the photographer created the whole photo he placed the cardboard photos and the shoes perfectly in place to create this shot of a ”homeless” person when in fact it wasn’t a homeless person everything was stages to audiences not knowing if a photo was staged or not this has a massive effect on history and historic photographs as how are we meant to know if these photos were staged or not when we can no longer find out from the person who created them. In my opinion I believe that ai is having a big effect on photography and the industry in many ways it is negatively impacting in in the sense it does not tell the truth gives people wrong impressions and does more harm than good however when ai is used as an art medium to create an interpretation of something with it being obvious are isn’t used in a harmful way I think it is a genius way to create art. In conclusion I believe that the future of photography could be in danger due to how fast technology is developing and changing and I believe that this will affect is as people may never know the truth about a photograph and what is it if it is all a lie. 

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QUOTES:

‘The process of manipulation starts as soon as we frame a person, a landscape, an object or a scene with our cameras’

‘What are the differences between reality and witness and points of view?’

‘And what does a real photograph look like/Is it something you can see on a screen and alter?’

ESSAY:

Hypothesis: Photography and Truth: Can a photograph lie?

‘What are the differences between reality and witness and points of view?’ Susan Bright in her article ‘Is it Real?’ comments on the accuracy and truth in photography, and how it can be altered because after all isn’t a photograph proof in itself?

Louis Dagueterre was a French painter and physicist who invented the first practical process of photography, known as the daguerreotype. The daguerreotype is a direct-positive process, creating a highly detailed image on a sheet of copper plate with a thin coat of silver without the use of a negative. The invention of the daguerreotype posed as a threat to traditional artforms such as painting and drawing, considering it was the first widely used photography process. Furthermore this process was the first ever successfully refined process that created an exact replica of an image reflected into a camera, in which painters had less domination in the work of portraits. As photography has evolved so has technology, as cameras have evolved and the process of developing image is slowly becoming non-existent as now we are able to see the images immediately after they are taken, without having to process them through a darkroom. Technology has severely advanced in such way that artificial intelligence, also known as AI, is able to generate images with a prompt and create life-like images. AI has become has become a significant part in everyday life, and the benefits it has created for the human population, it has become a device humankind are relying on such as google, voice recognition, and generative AI however have we really thought about the consequences and the danger AI has presented us with? AI becomes more intelligent with every resource it collects which become a danger to humanity with what AI will be able to accomplish in the future.

It is assumed that photography before the digital age could not be manipulated however by using different chemicals in the developing process you would be able to alter the image. An example in how photographers would alter an image by the process of Pictorialism. Pictorialism is an international aesthetic movement that characterised photography between 1890 and 1914 approximately, various techniques were used to produce these images: important manipulations in the darkroom, special filters (including soft-focus), unusual treatments during development, use of special papers. My historical case study, being ‘Robert Capa, Death of a Loyalist Soldier; does not concern manipulation specifically within the image, although its circumstances are certainly hard to untangle. Allegedly this image was taken in 1936 on the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War, in which it is presenting a man dramatically falling to his death. Presumedly it is said he suffered with a fatal gunshot wound, however no wound is visible in the photograph. For years, research was done into the casualty records from September 5th, at the Battle of Cerro Muriano, in hopes of obtaining details about the man allegedly dying in the image. However, it later discovered that Capa’s image was staged and did not in fact capture the moment of death. ‘The creation of an image can shift fluently from a performative or theatrical act’ this quote by Max Pinckers successfully supports the idea that photography can be staged through a ‘theatrical act.’ Capa’s image supports Pinckers statement as he staged his photograph and made it look like a man had suffered a fatal gunshot wound. By creating this fantasy people had indulged in his performance believing that the man had died however many years later we discovered it was a performance created by Capa which leads to the ultimate question are all photographs a lie? and can they be trusted?

‘You’re going to have truth, and you’re going to have reality, and reality’s going to be a mixture of truth, hallucinations.’ Photography is a way for artists to express themselves, therefore there is no right or wrong. AI has become a way to create extraordinary images that would not be able to be replicated in the real world. My case study ‘Philip Toledano > Trump as a poor man’ shows a different perception of reality, if Trump hadn’t had a gilded life of privilege handed to him what would he look like? Digitally you are able to alter the image through using image manipulation software, such as Photoshop. There are also AI softwares that have been created to produce images that look ‘real’, but are in fact a digital construct, these are constructed by artificial intelligence. Softwares like this include; DreamStudio, Midjourney or DALL E 2, these softwares would create images like the case study by Toledano. The systems generate images by prompts and information they are able to gather from the internet.

In conclusion, I think that both images portray the importance of context and external factors in viewing photography, yet they also differ in their methods of concealment of the truth ‘the process of manipulation starts as soon as we frame a person, a landscape, an object or a scene with our cameras.’ Therefore ultimately photography is not a lie yet is not complete truth.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bright, Susan (2019) Is it Real? in Photography Decoded. London: Octopus Publishing Group Ltd

Max Pinckers Interview: On Speculative Documentary

Williams, Zoe (18 April, 2023), ‘AI isn’t a threat’ – Boris Eldagsen, whose fake photo duped the Sony judges, hits back. The Guardian News & Media Ltd. (accessed 19 June 2023)

Pictorialism: https://aestheticsofphotography.com/pictorialism/#Principles_of_Pictorialism

From my images of St. Malo I made a zine.