Pardon the delay, below is my reaction to Errol Morris’ article Photography as a Weapon.
Aa visual learner I process visual information faster. I have always been drawn to photography as an art form and as a visual link to the world we live in. I liked what Morris said about a photograph’s “ability to copy reality…” and “to alter reality.” Visual images have a powerful presence in the lives of most, from pictures of your family’s Christmases’ to advertisements on television we are constantly exposed to an array of visual images. Which one’s are important?
The rise of the digital age brings the advancement of the ability to deceive. However, “information warfare”, as Henry Faird calls it, of course has been going on for years. As Faird and Morris discuss past dictators wartime propaganda you realize how photoshop was never truly needed to deceive, it simply makes it easier. Visual information warfare takes place from our own living rooms to grocery store tabloid articles. From commercials for diet pills to the more serious altering of official imagery. The media often dictates what the average citizen mentally ingests. It is up to the individual to the digest the information being fed. Photoshop and other digital technology programs only aid in deception but as always it is up to the individual to discern the value of the information. While it is important to be cautious when accepting information I also agree with Morris when he says “Photoshop is not the culprit. It is the intention to deceive.” We all know the power of photoshop and because we know it can be used for deceit we must be mindful of what we are looking at and make an educated decision on what is real and what is fake.
“Information warfare”, as Faird calls it, not only uses visual imagery to deceive but the altering of an images’ caption as an equally effective tool. We see this all the time in tabloid articles. A picture of a make-up less celebrity gets turned into a celebrity “battling cancer”. The deceiver does not have to use powerful digital technology to alter an image’s meaning. An image is only so good as it’s caption. As Erroll Morris points out, a simple rewording of a caption can influence the entire way we view the image. We see this in the funny photo captions posted on Facebook everyday. A seemingly insignificant photo turned hilarious with a simple caption, altering the entire meaning of the photograph.
As digital technology has helped our world community thrive, making commodity readily available and community easily accessible, it has also lessened our visceral senses. Everything is easy, at our fingertips and seeking and looking are not a valued ability. This generation must be aware and take time to investigate. The article was very concerned with what Iran’s intentions behind releasing both images were. To those intentions, who knows? But I do agree with Charles Johnson when he says it’s important to expose fraud, not because of what it is trying to hide but because it is hiding anything at all. While he was adamant that it was of the utmost importance to reveal the photograph as fake because of our political relationship with Iran, our “mortal enemies”, I believe that the utmost importance was that we revealed the image as fake at all. Images and information should be represented truthfully regardless of bias and we should also be careful to examine images and information that are presented to us by those of us we trust to speak truth.