“Are press photographers to be reduced to little more than fleshy bipods?” wonders MIT prof William J. Mitchell (pictured at left) in The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era, his recent book on the implications of digital photo manipulation, that computer wizardry that permits pictures full of lies to look as real as photographs. In his article “When Is Seeing Believing?” published in last February’s Scientific American, Mitchell presented two digitally tampered-with variants on a news photo showing George Bush and Margaret Thatcher strolling through a garden. Bush was moved from Thatcher’s left side to her right in one version and brought closer to her in another, leading to quite different interpretations of their body language. “What actually took place between George Bush and Margaret Thatcher–a chat, a quarrel or an intimate whisper?” asked Mitchell.
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Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Joe Wrinn.
