A Thousand-Word Lie

(Photo credit: justDONQUE.images)

“One picture is worth a thousand words”, so goes a hackneyed old saying.  If the saying is true and that picture is a lie, then what do we have?  We have a thousand-word lie.  And it is indeed possible to lie in photography; from fibs and little white lies through to out-and-out deceptions and black lies.

This subject has gained popularity of late to the extent that a full-blown exhibition “devoted to the history of manipulated photography before the digital age” is underway at no less than the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. 

Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop features 200 doctored photographs “created between the 1840s and 1990s.”  Ironically and appropriately at one and the same time, this exhibition is sponsored by Adobe Systems, makers of Photoshop.

The objective of this series of articles is not to provide an enumeration of manipulated photographs and doctored images; the thesis of this series is referred to in the sentence above, “a thousand-word lie.” 

From a religious perspective, lying is considered sinful; from a secular legal perspective, lying under oath is a criminal offence.  In general, lying is looked on with disfavour and issues of righteousness and trust rise up.  As such, where lying is concerned ethical implications exist, be the medium words or images.  Theology and Philosophy have laid down guideposts on the matter of falsehood and lie but, because cameras, let alone Photoshop, were not exactly commonplace in, let us say, the respective ‘heydays’ of Theology and (Classical) Philosophy, the subject of lying via pictures is not one for which the ‘rules’ have been laid down.

Photoshopping and Falsehood

Since the invention of retouching tools and the airbrush over a century ago it has never been the case that a photograph is, or has to be, an accurate and truthful reflection of reality.  Yet until only a decade ago before ‘Photoshopping’, using Photoshop and equivalent applications,  caught on in the consumer mass market, a photograph was considered to be a definitive ‘snapshot’ of reality.  “It’s a photograph!” meant that the photograph was, ipso facto, an ineluctable proof of itself.  This attitude still holds true in less-advanced nations who remain unaware of ‘Photoshopping’ (and even of Forrest Gump and Industrial Light and Magic, ancient as they are).

Lying via an image is many-hued; as mentioned, a photo may be pictorial fib or ‘little white lie’, an unspeakable black lie, or anything and everything in between, including distortion and fabrication.

Just as with the spoken word, such a photographic falsehood can sometimes be inadvertent.  Lighting, perspective, focal length, and faulty processing are a few of the reasons a photograph may end up as a false window on the world.  Intentional photographic falsehoods range from sly retouching to object removal to software-based image manipulation and reconstruction, and even constructing or reconstructing a scene for a shot, to be passed off as an authentic, as-it-happened photograph.

Kinds and Types of ‘Photographic Lies’

Where intentional photographic falsehoods are concerned, the underlying motives must also be examined.  Is the motive harmless family fun or a friendly prank?  Or is deliberate deception the goal?  Is the motive to deceive a nation or conceal a crime?  Or ‘merely’ to sell airline tickets and resort rooms?  These are not hypothetical what-ifs and abstract questions; a number of such instances of photographic manipulation have acquired notoriety over the years though other instances, as bad or worse in the extent of image manipulation, photographic lying, and ulterior motives, have escaped media scrutiny or the public eye.  We shall examine:


• Men’s magazines and fashion glossies: airbrushing and retouching centrefolds and models;

• The impact of illusion on, both, men’s expectations and young women’s self-image;

• Double standards Ð while some are made more beautiful, others are made . . . more ugly;

• ‘Making the Sale’ with a photograph Ð how far is ‘too far’?

• Adding elements into a photograph and wholly fabricating a photograph;

• Removal and airbrushing elements not only out of a photograph, but, out of history;

• Fakery and manipulation in purportedly authentic war photos from the field;

• Artificially staging a photograph to be passed off as if captured in nature; 

• Focal length, and a telephoto lens’s inadvertent lie that triggered a nationwide furore;

• From dodging and burning to the marvels of Photoshop,  where to draw the line?

The Goal

Can the grey zone of ethical ambiguities be resolved via such a situational, case-by-case evaluation?  Or will they yield an incoherent set of ‘answers’ that vary by circumstance and context? 

In all likelihood, expecting a Uniform Photographic Code of Ethics may be a bridge too far but, perhaps, a reasonable delineation between what’s acceptable and what’s unacceptable, what’s ethical and what’s unethical, will be possible to tease out as we progress through this series of articles inquiring into the Ethics of Photographic Manipulation.