viz. - Digital Manipulation

Don't You Dare Go Digital

Andi — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:05:45 +0000

Rachel’s post this past week about the low-fi appeal of recent music videos raises similar questions to those surrounding a recent controversy over a digitally altered image stripped of its status as a World Press Photo contest winner. And, what was the alteration that led to this disqualification? Third prize winner in Sports Features, Stepan Rudik removed a foot from the finished photograph. World Press Photo, an organization known for promoting professional standards in photojournalism largely through the means of awarding one of the most prestigious photography prizes, disqualified Rudik because the jury discovered that he had digitally altered one of the images in his photo-essay submission. Both the low-fi aesthetics of the OKGO video and the field of professional photojournalism privilege a definition of technical prowess that does not include manipulation of the image beyond much capturing and cropping. The value of the image and the skill of the image-makers, in both of these respects, reside in the moment the photograph is shot and not at any other point in the process in which the photograph is made.

It is interesting that World Press Photo takes such pains to distance itself from the artisanal aspects of making a photograph and falls back on a presumption of authenticity aligned with the decisive moment. So, good photojournalism is not made but captured? Are these prizes just awarded to extremely lucky individuals? For the award committee, there seems to have been an implicit emphasis on aesthetically stunning images combined with an explicit emphasis on photographs captured at that lucky pivotal moment. And, always, the assertion that nothing has been altered. Amazing technical prowess at the moment of capturing combined with low-fi levels of retouching at the moment of making the photograph. Consider several of these past prize winners:

Image Credit: Jean-Marc Bouju

World Press Photo of the Year, 2003

Image Credit: Anthony Suau

World Press Photo of the Year, 1987

Image Credit: Nick Ut

World Press Photo of the Year, 1972

Although many of the prizes are given for images that are aesthetically beautiful, the truth-claim of those photographs deemed excellent photojournalism lies in the assertion that they have not been altered. World Press Photo’s rule reads, “the content of the image must not be altered. Only retouching which conforms to the currently accepted standards in the industry is allowed” (Worldpressphoto.org). Perhaps this assertion is not all that surprising—after all, it may be quite the slippery slope that runs from the removal of a foot to the faking of photographs of missile tests. But, where is the exact difference between altering aesthetics and manipulating content? Is it okay to punch up the grain of the image or switch from color to black-and-white? Is it wrong to crop out relevant context or wipe out a misplaced foot? What is the exact difference, in terms of truth claims, between framing, cropping, and photo-shopping?

Viz. Workshop on March 26

noelradley — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:10:25 +0000

Viz. will be hosting a workshop at the end of March, here at the University of Texas. Click through to the DWRL page to read more.

Photosynth Can Show You the World (or, Maybe Not)

Rachel Schneider — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:30:06 +0000

Image Credit: Screenshot from Photosynth

I was delighted this week to have Noel Radley introduce me to an interesting TED talk about Photosynth, a new imaging software created by Microsoft that not only incorporates the ability to get incredible close-ups on images, but also stitches photos together to create larger images. As they claim on their website, Photosynth “allows you to take a bunch of photos of the same scene or object and automagically stitch them all together into one big interactive 3D viewing experience that you can share with anyone on the web.” The results, as you can see above, are fairly impressive.

Image Credit: Screenshot from Photosynth

In a Photosynth image, each of the points represents a photograph. This point cloud of the Santa Barbara Courthouse Fountain Sculpture is built from 315 separate photos of the fountain. In the video of the talk, Blaise Aguera y Arcas describes the early research into this done at the University of Washington, and explains the social implications of incorporating photographs of major tourist attractions from a number of people: these photos themselves create social environments as they allow for shared meta-data, tagging all of the characters painted on the Sistine Chapel’s roof:

However, what also struck me about this is not only the possibility of enhanced images, but also how the nature of the software also shows its gaps: the move from one image to another is not seamless, but points out the fragmentary nature of its construction. Each individual piece is still visible. Photosynth attempts to create a 3D viewing experience, but cannot replace the trip to Italy to see Michelangelo’s work itself. Instead, it points out the limits of technology to capture that experience, and even the cognitive limits of humans to comprehend such panoramic vistas—in other words, the sublime. I of course am charmed by the idea of shared data, and look forward to some of the tagging work we’ll be doing at the Blanton next semester, but what Photosynth’s greatest charm for me is demonstrating so beautifully the value of the fragment as much as the power of the whole.

Digitial Immersion

timturner — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:19:53 +0000

Image credit: Peter Greenaway, in the NYT

Students of art, art history, and digital media environments will not want to miss this NYT review of an art installation by Peter Greenaway for the Venice Biennale. Greenaway's project centers around--recreates? or remixes?--Veronese's 1562 painting "The Wedding at Cana" (reproduced after the jump). Using a variety of new media techniques, Greenaway re-presents the image, and his interpretation of it, to his audience. The reviewer concludes with an argument about the best possibilities of new media technology to enhance perception:

To a certain extent all the digital manipulation works its own temporary miracles. Even the inane conversation begins to resemble things that might have floated through Veronese's mind as he determined his figures' attire, body language and facial expression. And instead of the usual art-history-lecture spoon-feeding of information, you have the illusion of seeing and thinking for yourself with heightened powers. The next stop should be the Louvre and the real thing.

If any of viz.'s readers are lucky enough to see it for themselves, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Hat tip to new media, and a colleague: first spotted at John Jones's Twitter feed

Image credit: Wikicommons

Digital forensics

John Jones — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 04:09:49 +0000

The New York Times has posted an interview with Dartmouth’s Hany Farid, the creator of “digital forensics.” Here’s how Dr. Farid describes the field:

It’s a new field. It didn’t exist five years ago. We look at digital media—images, audio and video—and we try to ascertain whether or not they’ve been manipulated. We use mathematical and computational techniques to detect alterations in them.

In society today, we’re now seeing doctored images regularly. If tabloids can’t obtain a photo of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie walking together on a beach, they’ll make up a composite from two pictures. Star actually did that. And it’s happening in the courts, politics and scientific journals, too. As a result, we now live in an age when the once-held belief that photographs were the definitive record of events is gone.

Actually, photographic forgeries aren’t new. People have doctored images since the beginning of photography. But the techniques needed to do that during the Civil War, when Mathew Brady made composites, were extremely difficult and time consuming. In today’s world, anyone with a digital camera, a PC, Photoshop and an hour’s worth of time can make fairly compelling digital forgeries.

Dr. Farid makes some other interesting claims as well. Since 1990, the percentage of fraud cases involving photos has risen from 3 percent to 44.1 percent. While the majority of the interview focuses on digital manipulation in scientific research, clearly photographic forgery is becoming a significant problem in all areas of society.

Dartmouth Photography Tampering Website

Nate Kreuter — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:40:45 +0000

Dartmouth has a very interesting website I just discovered that documents the manipulation of photos with examples spanning photography's history. The site is well worth checking out. Many of the examples provided touch on sensitive issues, making them potentially rich for an in-class discussion of what's at stake (rhetorically, politically, journalistically, historically) when photos are manipulated by photographers, news editors or political leaders.