Photos to Look Good

Christine Rosen argues in “The Image Culture” that in digital media and photo imagery people are given the power to alter any type of pictures.  Her writing Rosen talks about how anyone can use this program and exploit it to their liking as she describes it in her writing “(like inexpensive cameras and picture-editing software) that give almost everyone the power to create, distort, and transmit images”.  Everyone can alter any picture, including me.  I had the experience of altering images myself when I took pictures for a group of people and altered  the picture to make them look as good as possible.  My friend was so impressed with my work that she wanted to learn how to do it herself. 

With technology becoming more and more advanced, it makes photography more accessible to everyday people as well.  Before the invention of cameras, we looked at images through paintings and sculptures.  As cameras became popular, paintings and sculptures were replaced with photos and artists seemed to move on to create more abstract works.  Images through the lens made a great advancement through black and white.  Even though at that time there were no computers, photographers were still able to alter images.   It might not be as easy as using Photoshop but it was still doable.  People then started catching on and realized that pictures can be altered and they cannot always believe what they see.  However, they allow themselves to be thrown into believing the images are real.  When I was a child, I would think most of the pictures I see represented what things really looked like.  As I grew older, I came to the realization that most pictures I see everywhere were altered and modified.  Some people enjoy looking at real and altered pictures to see if they are fake or not.  I like looking at these pictures as well but not for the purpose of looking at them to determine if they are fake or not.  When I look at these photos, I like to find out the techniques that are put to use to alter  the photos.  I have done a lot of alteration in the pictures I took, yet I have not been able to alter them to such degrees that subjects in the photo look completely different.  People may see a fake photo but they should not simply determine if they have been altered or not.  Instead, they should try to understand the photos themselves and how are they able to make them look completely different from the original images.