Lies Behind Cameras

Samantha Damico
samantha.n.damico@gmail.com

In the modern world we live in today, photo manipulation is a very real concept. Whether it's the media catching the President in a bad moment or girls acting like models on Instagram, it surrounds us. Because of this phenomenon, the truth in the media is hidden behind the lies of the camera.

Image courtesy of Bored Panda

With modern technology, we have today, editors can make any photo look the way they want it to look. Photographers can also edit angles to make crowds look bigger or smaller to benefit whatever side they're trying to convey. 

For instance, an article on deMilked.com shows this photo of a Hillary Clinton rally looks like there are tons of people there, (left), when in reality, the photographer just caught the right angle.

Going back to the code of ethics laws for journalists, photo manipulation breaks one of the main codes. Journalism nowadays has become about selling stories and the truth within those stories simply does not matter. Photo manipulation is used nowadays to get consumers to believe everything they see to be true, even if it's not.

An article on Fstoppers talks specifically about certain photos that have been taken to indicate false information. One of the photos looks as though it's been taken on a busy sidewalk, but a different angle suggests that there are only 6 people on the sidewalk and they're fairly spread out. 

These image examples prove to us that the media constantly produces input that they want us to believe, rather than the truth. Society wants us to believe everything we hear. Some people are smart enough to differentiate that you cannot believe everything you hear. But when it becomes visual, it's much harder to not believe what you see with your own two eyes. This is what makes photo manipulation so deceptive. 

As I mentioned previously, modern technology allows us to create and edit photos into looking like anything. As technology becomes more advanced, the harder it is going to get in order to tell the difference between a real photo and a photo the media wants us to believe is real. 

"A picture is worth a thousand words."

This is true because when we see something with our two eyes, we're more inclined to believe it. The photo manipulation phenomenon is just another way for the media to persuade us into believing what they want us to believe rather than form our own opinions off of factual evidence.