photography as a weapon

Response to Photography as a Weapon, by Errol Morris, for the New York Times:

I chose this article for the class gleaning assignment because I belive the ethics and implications of digital photography manipulation have not yet been fully realized or even acknowledged by most people. This is not just an issue for photographers. Anyone who participates in modern, industrialized society will find him or herself confronted by dozens of manipulated images every day. I think that it is important to maintain a consciousness of the fact that some images we see---maybe even most---are not accurate representations of reality. It is so unbelievably easy---and the article makes this point---to simply see a photograph and accept it for perfect truth without any reservations or second thought. Easy enough, in fact, for photo editors at major national newspapers to overlook the glaring evidence of photographic tampering within the missile image. I happened to miss the newspaper that day. I only saw the image after the fake was outed, so I can't say whether I would have fallen for it too. Once I saw the image as a fake, it was obvious, but I'm not so sure I would have noticed it if it were presented to me as a normal photograph in a legitimate context. All this reminds me of a visual color-memory test that Meg posted on her blog this summer. When we look at an image, the data goes into our eyes, but our brains don't necessarily register all the datea as something important. The article made a great point that captions and titles are more important than the image itself when it comes to influencing how we feel about the actual photograph. When photographs purport to display real life, context is everything.