Photo manipulation through history

[Derleth]

This goes back long before computers, or Stalin, or even Doyle’s fairies (which are mentioned).

This nearly iconic portrait (in the form of a lithograph) of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is a composite of Lincoln’s head and the Southern politician John Calhoun’s body.

This print (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division) appears to be of General Ulysses S. Grant in front of his troops at City Point, Virginia, during the American Civil War. Some very nice detective work by researchers at the Library of Congress revealed that this print is a composite of three separate prints: (1) the head in this photo is taken from a portrait of Grant; (2) the horse and body are those of Major General Alexander M. McCook; and (3) the background is of Confederate prisoners captured at the battle of Fisher’s Hill, VA.

This quartet is interesting:

Stalin routinely air-brushed his enemies out of photographs. In this photograph a commissar was removed from the original photograph after falling out of favor with Stalin.

In this doctored photograph, Mao Tse-tung (right) had Po Ku (left) removed from the original photograph, after Po Ku fell out of favor with Mao.

In this doctored photograph, Adolf Hitler had Joseph Goebbels (second from the right) removed from the original photograph. It remains unclear why exactly Goebbels fell out of favor with Hitler.

In this doctored photo of Queen Elizabeth and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in Banff, Alberta, King George VI was removed from the original photograph. This photo was used on an election poster for the Prime Minister. It is hypothesized that the Prime Minister had the photo altered because a photo of just him and the Queen painted him in a more powerful light.

Three brutal dictators and a Canadian PM, all removing unpersons.

In order to create a more heroic portrait of himself, Benito Mussolini had the horse handler removed from the original photograph.

This is just petty. Can’t say I expected anything else from Mussolini.

See which of your favorite shots are complete fakes!

[SpoilerVirgin]

If this kind of thing interests you, you should check out Errol Morris’ book Believing is Seeing, a collection of his essays about photo manipulation. His piece on a Crimean War image is one of the most fascinating things I ever read, and the reason I purchased the book (I originally read the Crimean War piece as a series of articles on Morris’ blog).

[blondebear]

I think it was Morris who wrote the article about Ansel Adams’ Winter Sunrise: Sierra Nevada from Lone Pine, 1944. There were big letters “LP” made of white rocks on the hillside, and he scratched them off the negative.

[Senegoid]

Phony 1950 composite photo of Senator Millard Tydings listening pensively to American Communist Party poohbah Earl Browder, discussed in this class discussion outline (about two-thirds of the way down).

Tydings chaired a committee that had investigated some of Joseph McCarthy’s commie claims, and McCarthy was determined to get him voted out of office. During Tydings 1950 re-election campaing, McCarthy’s staff put out that picture, which helped get Tydings defeated.

In fact, Tydings had never met Browder except when Browder testified (reluctantly) at the Tydings hearings.

More at Wikipedia article Millard Tydings.

[Zebra]

http://www.fourandsix.com/photo-tampering-history/?currentPage=13

The official photo of newly elected Canadian member of parliament (MP), Rathika Sitsabaiesan, was altered to remove her cleavage. The photo was retouched by a House of Commons photographer in what a spokesperson says is common practice. Communications spokesperson Heather Bradley did not say why the photo was retouched but confirmed that MPs approve their final photo.

The effect of that photo manip is just bizarre.

[Simplicio]

@Zebra

The effect of that photo manip is just bizarre.

Yea, somehow removing an inch of cleavage made her head weirdly disproportionate. Its a lot smaller relative to her body then in the unmanipulated photo. Weird.

The guy in 1864 did a better job sticking Lincoln’s head on another guys body then the much more recent attempt to hide some cleavage.

[Little_Nemo]

A funny example is this picture. The picture on the right is a genuine photo of Barack Obama with his grandparents. For some reason a guy named Jack Cashill decided to claim it was a faked photo. (I don’t know why he thought this was a claim worth making.) In order to “prove” his claim, Cashill faked the photo on the left and removed Obama from the picture.

Now here’s the thing. If you’re going to bring up the subject of photo faking, you should expect people are going to really look hard at the evidence. You’re pretty much telling them to, after all. And, of course, when people examined the two photos it was pretty clear which one was real and which one had been manipulated. (You can even see some of Obama’s leg in Cashill’s fake.)

So important lessons here for all you potential photo fakers.

1. Have a plan. Think of a point you’re trying to make with your fake.
2. Put a little effort into making your fake. Show some pride in your work.
3. Avoid the subject of photo faking. You don’t want people to consider the possibility.
4. And never put your fake photo next the real photo and tell people one of these two photos is a fake. You’re just going to lose that game.
5. Not directly related to photo faking, but you should avoid claiming that your subject is the illegitimate son of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. That kind of thing just hurts your credibility. Yes, you’d think that wouldn’t need to be said but Jack Cashill broke this rule too.

[whitetho]

The are a number of pictures of Nikola Tesla calmly reading while sitting next to a big spark machine, which are actually double exposures.

[Lust4Life]

Very interesting subject, you’ve piqued my interest!