The real and the digital

Does digital technology change how we see photography as truth?

As a big fan of Photoshop and its many uses, I am all too aware of its ability to distort the truth. In a previous post, objectivity in documentary photography, I discussed how perspective and timing among other things could skew the meaning of a photograph. With the evolution of digital technology, we now have the ability to distort the truth beyond recognition.

My role teaching life skills to teenagers involves support with body image; it is well known that today’s media presents an alarmingly unrealistic image of celebrities, leaving young people striving for the physical perfection seen in magazines.

In order to counteract this pressure, I use the Dove Evolution commercial, showing the make over and editing involved in order to prepare an ordinary woman for an appearance in an advertising campaign.

As noted by Joachim Schmid, we are all guilty of mainly presenting our better side to the world, not just in our images but also in the aspects of our lives, which we post to social networking sites. Some, like in the magazine images, may even get a little creative with the truth.

I suppose the question we need to ask is; has technology made this happen, is it only in the technological world that we behave in this way?

In our everyday lives we wear clothes and make up to present a particular image of ourselves to the world; looking back through history, corsets and bustles have squeezed and shaped women’s figures into the acceptable shape of the era. Bumping into old friends whilst shopping, we only offer the family news that sheds us in a positive light.

The photograph, just like every medium at our disposal, now and historically is merely a tool to provide evidence of that which we want to portray.

 Technology hasn’t changed us; it’s just made it pretending a little bit easier.