Manipulation

Topic: Manipulation

"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bibliography:

The Real and the True: The Digital Photography of Pedro Meyer, with essays by Louis Kaplan, Pedro Meyer, Alejandro Castellanos, and Douglas Cruickshank.

• Trust the Photographer, Not the Photogaph: Pedro Meyer in conversation with Ken Light, by Douglas Cruickshank, pp.126-142
• Las Vegas: Where Does Reality Reside? [December 1998, www.zonezero.com] pp.105-109
  

The infinite ways in which photographs can be altered is discussed between Ken Light and Pedro Meyer. These alterations are the factors which cause controversy over what really is a "real" or "true" photograph. Pedro Meyer speaks of his style of documentary photography with the use of the computer to manipulate his photographs in order to show the truth. The truth as he describes it, could be events which very well will occur in the near future, or may have happened at a different location seconds before the actual photo was taken.

For example, he takes two separate images: One of a tobacco field, and one photo of workers farming down the road. He combines the two images to create farmers in the tobacco field. This event may have not occurred exactly, but its safe to say that this scene could have, or already has occurred. Ken Light believes that any manipulation of a documentary photograph creates falsities, but Meyer's theory is that through manipulation he is making these images more accurate.

What I really found fascinating about the rading was a complete opposite idea that he discussed having to do with capturing "straight" images. These images are free of digital manipulation, but look like complete Photoshop fabrications, mostly being architecture found in Las Vegas. "It looks 'fake.' But what do you call an image in which the subject matter's apperance is fake to begin with? " This leads us to question, "Where does the deception lie, in the original subject or in the reproduction? Or in fact, does the deception reside in our interpretation of it all?"

In my recent work, I am using both "real" and "fake" elements to create a single image. By real I mean things like landscapes, and fake being representational models. I rely heavily on the use of Photoshop, and I feel like after reading the section on Las Vegas, I definitely would like to incorporate shooting photographs that already create this illusion type of aesthetic, and be less reliant on post production. I could do this by experimenting with different and more dramatic angles, as well as creating a lot of distortion within the images. I am drawn to the deception of these types of images, and the fine line between reality and actuality.