This link provides examples of what real women would look like if they looked like the sketches designers draw up of their clothes. These photos are admittedly photo-shopped, which they have to be for anybody to actually look like that. Take a look and you will see exactly what I mean. These photos are not photo-shopped to make the models look nicer or to fix minor details; it is to prove a point that the expectations being set are completely unreasonable.
Monthly Archives: November 2013
How Photography Heals and Brings People Together
Being a psychology major I am very interested in various things such as social interaction and mental illnesses. I never really thought photography and my interests would come together but upon searching I found something truly remarkable. I found a blog called Broken Light and this blog encourages people to post pictures about their mental illnesses. Through this process they can vent their emotions and their progress through the lens of a camera (and on a social media website) which I find to be achingly beautiful. One photo that captured my attention was the one I have incorporated in this blog post and I choose to post it because the picture resonates with me. The description states that the individual has suffered from depression and I thought the photograph embodied this emotion in a very deep way. Throughout my life I have witnessed people in my life battle with mental illnesses and to be given the opportunity to view others creatively tell their stories was emotional for me. I would encourage anyone that has a mental illness to try this method of documentation as a form of venting.
Facebook History
This doesn’t really have anything to do with manipulation of photographs specifically but it fit into the social media category so I thought I’d share. I’ve seen these kinds of things before, I don’t know who thought of it, but someone decided to make Facebook pages for different countries and have them talk to each other like they were back in the WWI and WWII era. In a way I guess it’s a type of manipulation. Imagine if kids of the future stumble upon this (assuming they still know what Facebook is at this point), they might think countries actually did this during war or something. We obviously know it’s ridiculous and just a joke, but who knows what people of the future might take from this.
Possible Solutions?
We’ve spent plenty of time discussing the problems that photo manipulation creates. How about some solutions?
- Label photoshopped photos and make the originals available in an effort to make clear what the original image (reality) looked like
- Ban any type of editing from journalistic photography. This would adress the issue around journalism being tainted by photoshop.
- Raise awareness about the amount of photoshop present within most magazines.
- General acknowledgement that photoshop is widely used.
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/content-marketing-2/photography-for-social-media-5-ninja-tips/
This article discusses some quick, easy pointers on taking photographs for a Business’ social media pages. It is broken into 5 tips, including; Framing & Composition, Lighting, Background & Style, Camera Angles, and Resolution. Although it is obvious that the pictures businesses post are very important to promoting themselves and portraying themselves in an appealing manor, it never occurred to me to think in this way. This is because I do not own a business that I need to promote or have great pictures for. When I post pictures on social media, they are usually only the ones from an experience that look alright, but I do not purposely take pictures at an event solely thinking about how they will look on a social media site. For example, in the article Daniel Lemin discusses the “rule of thirds” for framing a photo and how this can relate to the long, widescreen shot of a cover photo on facebook versus a square profile photo. This is what differs a photographer from myself; when taking a photo I am usually not capturing it a certain way just for a specific reason, such as a facebook page in this case. Although, now that I am a little bit more educated on the subject, I will be more aware.
While we examined several examples of political photo manipulation abroad it seems that we have failed to analyse or simply look at any contemporary pictures here at home. Here is an example of one. The photo depicts President Obama and the first lady descending from a plane. It seems that the first lady was photo shopped into the photo as you can see by the clear discrepancy with their hands.
Why do we Snapchat?
Our recent discussion in class this past week about Snapchat made me really think about why we do it. I can understand why people think it’s a little strange, sending pictures/videos of yourself making stupid faces or doing dumb things that people can only see for a matter of 10 seconds max sounds kind of silly right? And I agree that it is. However, I think Snapchat provides us with alot of benefits. For example, I’m in a relationship but he lives back where I’m from and I don’t see him as often as I’d like. So whenever I feel like I miss him or am in a bad mood, Snapchat does the trick. There’s debates whether your Snapchat photos ever get deleted and there is some mechanisms that can retrieve your photos, but it costs hundreds of dollars to get access to it. Yes, it’s a strange aspect of technology that I don’t think I’ll ever understand the reasoning behind creating, but it’s fun and harmless, so snap away.
We All Live in an Illusion
Today in a class discussion I was presented with an argument that I found to be very enlightening. The professor said that essentially we all live in an illusion since we utilize things but fail to recognize the processes behind the product. We take photos but we don’t understand the mechanics of a photo, we buy clothes but don’t contemplate the labor that went into making the clothes etc. Since I am a product of my environment I found myself thinking and realizing that I take things at face value and never really stop to consider the deeper meanings behind the objects that I surround myself with. This statement really resonated with me and made me re-evaluate my thought processes concerning the consumption of these easily accessible things.
Erik Johansson – The Manipulation Touch
Since I am very intrigued by the idea of photo manipulation I looked up various photographers and among my findings I stumbled upon a Swedish photographer/retoucher named Erik Johansson. I was astounded by how beautiful and surreal his photographs were because they looked so real. In his about section of his website he says” I don’t capture moments, I capture ideas” and this notion was interesting because usually individuals take photographs to preserve a certain instance in time, to have a sense of immortality in the world. The fact that he takes the photographs in a more creative expression is something I can respect and I look forward to him uploading more photographs on his website.
This is a link to a short article about a photographer named Kyle Thompson. I stumbled upon this article on my facebook account and was fascinated by some Kyle’s photographs. He began with mostly self portraits and uses some awesome techniques including the use of flour, fog machines, and fire. You can view many of Kyle’s photographs here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyle_thompson/
However, the most interesting part of Kyle’s story that I thought was appropriate to be on this blog, was that Kyle’s photos were first viewed on social media; on his reddit account. After posting some of his amazing self portrait photographs in his reddit they had over 4 million views and his photography become more popular. Without any formal training, Kyle was able to use social media to his advantage and get his work out there.
Modern Life in Social Media 