With the introduction of photographic technology around 1826, a cultural revolution was sparked. Photographic technology became, according to Sturken Cartwright, “a scientific tool for registering reality more accurately” (17). Photographs were used to capture real moments, to demonstrate the harshness of conditions like war and poverty to create understanding, and even to begin to heighten socially prominent individuals to “celebrity status.”
Photographs became a new way to convey reality and contribute to understanding by providing a peek into parts of reality that people had no way of understanding. War no longer had a simply symbolic meaning because the photos of soldiers during and after battle contributed to a deeper and wider understanding of exactly what the word meant. Each photograph was a piece of reality – raw and unfiltered. In the age of digital imaging, however, has the significance of the photograph as a sense of reality been diminished? Are we using digital imaging now in order to construct reality?
Enhancing “Likability”
When a picture is posted on Instagram without being digitally modified first, it is usually tagged with the #nofilter hashtag. At least in my experiences these kinds of posts are largely the exception and not the rule, as the use of digital filters to enhance a photo before sharing it with friends is thought to make it more flattering and thus, more “likable.” Why is this? It is a very minor form of digital image modification, but why do we feel a need to do this? My belief is that other more serious forms of digital modification have been used to reinvent the definition of beauty and what it means to be beautiful.
Almost any women’s magazine cover that you see anymore has had the cover image extremely modified, particularly if that magazine has anything to do with getting skinny (or, as the magazines prefer to say it, “fit.”). Cover images of already thin celebrity models are further modified to create an image that is supposed to be more desirable. There is nothing real about the “after” photos that usually end up being used on magazine covers, and there is really nothing special about them either.
More Than Just Beauty
When Time Magazine darkened the skin tone of OJ Simpson during his murder trial in the 1990s, they said this was done in order to make him look more like a villain. What are the cultural implications of this? Years after the supposed end of segregation and racism, we are still using race in photographs to perpetuate he negative and deviant associations that we have about race.
Photography can be a very powerful and influential media, as it has been since 1826. Is there a line, though, between photography and propaganda that’s used to continue to reinforce specific ideals through digital modification – if so, should it be erased? Can we even find it anymore as more and more photos are used in campaign messages all over the world?
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