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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/apr/12/28-fake-images-that-fooled-the-world>
"“Pictures or it didn’t happen.” So runs the immediate social media retort to
any claim deemed too extraordinary to be true. Carried within it is an
assumption shared across the globe which has held firm almost since the
invention of the camera: that the ultimate form of proof is the photograph. The
idea is so strongly fixed in the human mind, it has acquired the status of a
law of nature, one obvious even to a child: the camera never lies.
Except it does, as the images collected here vividly attest. We may think of AI
deepfakes, and their Photoshop predecessors, as thoroughly modern menaces,
corrupting a previously innocent, reliable medium, but we would be wrong. It
turns out people have been doctoring photos, manipulating and meddling, from
the start. “Honest” Abe Lincoln was not only the first sitting president to be
photographed, but the first to be the subject of a photo fake.
It’s not hard to fathom why those in the darkroom were tempted to play tricks
with the technology as soon as they learned that they could. The most obvious
motive is the one that fuelled so much early photographic output: PR, or
propaganda. It must have seemed only natural to superimpose Lincoln’s head on
to the body of another man – an enslaver, as irony would have it – if that
would yield a more heroic image of the president. The same goes for the
portrait of civil war general Ulysses S Grant, depicted at the centre of a
military scene that was in fact three scenes combined into one. You want the
leader to look as strong and noble as possible. If that means showing him on
horseback, while quietly removing the handler who kept the animal under control
as the snap was taken, you’ll do it – or at least you will if you’re in charge
of optics for Benito Mussolini.
The beauty of photo manipulation for those practising politics’ black arts is
it can be deployed both to make your side look better and to make the other
side look worse. The North Koreans could add extra hovercraft to make their
military appear more lethal, while Republicans in the 2004 US presidential
campaign could put Democratic contender John Kerry alongside “Hanoi Jane”
Fonda, as if the two had appeared on a platform together, denouncing the
Vietnam war, a generation earlier. It never happened, but the picture says it
did – and, as we all know, a picture is worth a thousand-word correction."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
