:: Digital Photography & Imaging

What are the ways readers can judge the credibility of an image even in this era of digital manipulation?

For the days when we all thought that the camera never lied, digital will call into question that almost everything we hold dear about the camera’s ability to document the world around us accurately. In the digital age that we are living in right now, it is not realistic to expect people to blindly trust unfamiliar photographs; no matter how “undoctored” those images may look. As compared to the past, the general public now should be photographically literate to be able to tell from the genuine and fake image. As a result we now live in an age when the once-held belief that photographs are the definitive record of events is gone. Thus the safest approach for viewers in the 21st century is to assume that photographs put before us often are “content-manipulated unless labeled otherwise.”

While a good manipulation can be very difficult to detect visually, there are a few ways readers can judge the credibility of an image. For the more minor changes, Lighting is a cue to look out for in photographs; lighting is often very difficult to match perfectly as there will be differences in shadow directions and softness, therefore lighting gradients can be a god cue to detect any form of manipulation. Also, a small white specularity which is a reflection of the light of its surrounding is often spotted in a person’s eye, thus any difference in colour and shape of this specularity would reveal any manipulation. Another way to check if an image had been doctored is to magnify it by several hundred percent to check the pixels difference, but care must be taken for this check as many of the image had undergo compression which might affect its pixels as well. As for the more complex form of manipulation, readers should check if the photographs had been made by combining multiple photographs, or if it had been made by inserting, moving, reshaping various forms and shapes, or if it misrepresented the scene it depicts (e.g. the famous manipulation of the ‘Helicopter shark’ where two image were combined to give an impression that a great white shark is leaping out of water to attack a military personnel climbing a suspended ladder attached to a special forces UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, when there were actually no sightings of great white shark in San Francisco Bay). Certain logical sense would then have to be taken into consideration when an image is judge for its credibility.

Lastly, a suite of photo-authentication tools under development by Adobe Systems could make it possible to match a digital photo to the camera that shot it, and to detect some improper manipulation of images according to Wired News.

Imagine yourself as a reader representative for a newspaper. What would you tell a reader who complained to you about a picture of a car wreck that was particularly upsetting?

Based on the journalistic categorical imperative, a picture of a car wreck is depicted as just news. But from the reader’s point of view, it might be portrayed as a controversial picture that upsets the readers. As a result, readers will ponder over the question over the impact that it may have on the friends and relatives of the victim. Due to the differences between the 2 philosophies, the tension will increase among the 2 groups.

As a reader representative for a newspaper, my job is to soften the tension between the 2 extreme points of view. More common than often, newspaper has only taken into consideration from the journalism point of view (i.e. the categorical imperative) and disregard readers point of view (i.e. veil of ignorance). Hence, I would like to make use of the Golden Mean philosophy to find a middle way between them. Firstly, I would let the reader know that his / her complaint is truly important for us to maintain the ethical values uphold by our journalists and also our editors. I would then further investigate on the public views of the picture and feedback to the editors of the newspaper so that such sensitive news article would be taken into more consideration next time and dictate that the controversial images used would be smaller and possibly in black or white and on an inside page or, as part of a newscast, not as the lead story.

Subsequently, such occurrence would be considered as the misjudgment of the editor and he / she must be responsible for the article published and it will vary from sending a warning letter to eventually losing his job. This will act as a reminder for the team of journalists and the editors of the news to be aware of the ethical issues pertaining to the broadcast of it.

It was quite a tiring experience to travel from one end of the exhibition at the Singapore Flyer to the other end at the Central Promontory Site near the Collyer Quay. I spent the whole afternoon at the exhibition. Although feeling very tired after the trip, I feel that the experience is worthwhile and very enriching. The art installations as well as the art pieces presented at the event are really marvelous and of a high standard.

I set off my tour at the Raffles City Shopping Centre, down to the Singapore flyer, then the Esplanade, and along the Esplanade Bridge, finally to the Central Promontory Site at the Collyer Quay. I came across various outdoor exhibitions such as the Fantasmas (Phantoms) by Isaac Montoya, where a single art piece can be view from two different viewpoints behind the red and blue filter, the appearing and disappearing ‘Fog’ by Fujiko Nakaya, ‘Daing’, the fleet of bamboo pole with slippers, by Alfredo Juan Aquilizan and Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan, ‘Manas’ by Ilya & Emilia Kabakov and many more. To my astonishment, some of the installations were so huge that it is almost impossible to be created without the help of machineries to build it. An example is the ‘Containart Pavilion’ by Shigeru Ban.

Below are some of the photos that I have taken during the tour around the exhibition.

(Fantasmas (Phantoms) by Isaac Montoya)

(Daing by Alfredo Juan Aquilizan and Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan)

(Manas by Ilya & Emilia Kabakov)

Successful artwork: Location (6) by Hans Op de Beeck

I feel that the most successful exhibition for the event is Hans Op de Beeck’s art installation named Location (6). The artist presents his art installation by leading audience through a long corridor into an alternate-universe where everything is white in a lofty igloo-like dome that will then reveals the content of the work which is a small observatory for fictive panoramic vista of a imaginary desolate snowy modeled landscape bask in artificial fog and bright white lights. Efforts can be seen into making sure that everything stays white in this installation, as even the bedroom slippers they prepared for audience to enter is also white. Thus I feel that the art installation fully fulfilled the theme ‘wonder’ of the Singapore Biennale 2008. We can tell from the melancholic vision of Op de Beeck’s landscape that such scene is only available to the Europeans. Therefore when it appears in Singapore, a country that enjoys a tropical climate all year round, it is a scene that cannot naturally exist, that creates novelty in audience and a real treat for the eyes to gaze into the near-nothingness.

The installation not only allows the audience to experience the visual of winter atmosphere, but also to experience the feel in such condition and answer to the imagination of being in an igloo, thus emphasizing dislocation. The artist wants us to move between inside-looking out and outside-looking in, to be in spaces where not everything is in place, even when we are tricked into illusionistic fineries. With these, I feel that it clearly gives the audience a strong sense of wonder and answers to it when one looks at it in details.

Unsuccessful artwork: Wonder Wrap by Gary Carsley

I feel that the most unsuccessful exhibition is the Wonder Wrap by Australian artist Gary Carsley. His work is featured within the Pavilion in the form of functional tables and chairs decorated using veneers, which has floral prints from Little Guilin in Bukit Gombak and the Chinese Garden. From a distance, it looks interesting; raising the question as to why these chairs and tables are all standing in the middle of the room, but that is not the intention. The focus of the art installation is on the Draguerrotype laminates, which are digitally-edited photographs that are glued over chipwood to give the impression of a real timber. But the large open space at the Containment Pavilion seems to reduce the impact and makes it less engaging.

The theme of the Biennale is ‘Wonder’ but the intent of the installation seems somewhat confusing and messy to me and I can’t really relate it to the theme until near inspection. My first impression of the installation is that it would portray the theme ‘wonder’ strongly and anticipated that the chairs would somewhat do some wonders instead of just the imprints. To me, I feel that the layout does not seem to be in place and the intention of the artist is not transmitted successfully to the audience. Overall, it is a decent piece of art, except that the meaning behind it wasn’t as clear, and that begs the question whether does random arrangement of objects contribute significantly to the art installation? Also, the rationale behind how the different parts of the chair were selected is also not clear from the art installation.

On the whole, it was really an enriching experience as well as an eye-opener for me as this is my first time visiting such a grand event. This exercise gives me an opportunity to learn how to analyze the various artwork and view them in more details which somehow enlightened me in one way or another.

(Picture taken from National Geographic. Click on the image to view the higher resolution version)

This photo above shows a large glistening iceberg calved from the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland drifts through Disko Bay on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. It is taken by James Balog on a project to capture global warming in the act using 26 solar-powered cameras, taking time-lapse photographs of glaciers in the Atlantic Ocean. It will produce more than 300,000 photos over the course of two years to alter public perception of the global warming issue.

The above photo is just one of the photos to illustrate the effect of the rising temperature in the atmosphere. It clearly illustrates the realism of the situation by showing the melting of the iceberg gradually.

Aesthetically, I feel that the photographer has applied the rule of third successfully for the viewers to perceive the melting of the iceberg by the blazing sun due to depletion of the ozone layer. It also brings the focus of the 2 main objects (the sun and the iceberg) in the photo to the viewers.

In terms of the light quality, the light source for this photo comes from the natural source (i.e. the sun). Clear enough, the direction is from the top as it can be identified from the brightened up portion of the iceberg.

Focusing on the details of the iceberg, you would be able to feel the rough texture. Due to the fact that this is an iceberg, it automatically tells us that it has a hard texture as well. This kind of feeling is based on individual’s subjective experience which is outlined in the theory and aesthetics of photography.

Moving on to talk about the focus, I feel that the photo is in sharp focus as it clearly shows the outline and details of the iceberg. The photo gives me a cool feeling as majority of the colours portray in the photo are cool colours except for the emphasis of the scorching sun which brings out the main idea of global warming in the Atlantic Ocean.

As for the point of view in this photograph, it is a straight shot from far, but due to the gigantic size of the iceberg, it adds on perspective effect to the photo, which will give viewers a feeling that it is shot from a low angle.

I feel that the photographer has chosen to include only the sun and one gigantic iceberg (i.e. the Jakobshavn Glacier) and choose to exclude other smaller icebergs is because of the emphasis of one particular iceberg is stronger than a mass amount of smaller disconnected icebergs. By doing so, it would draw a stronger climactic attention to the viewers.

Overall, I feel that this is an excellent piece of work as the photographer considers all element of aesthetic to further elaborate the seriousness of the situation, and to bring across the message to the whole world to prevent further harm to the atmosphere.

Pablo Picasso – Guernica

(Click on the image to view the higher resolution version)

This picture is his depiction of the Nazi German bombing of Guernica, by twenty-eight bombers on April 26, 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. It embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. Asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, “It isn’t up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them.” Hence, my opinions on the art piece are purely based on my personal understanding and interpretations of it.

Firstly, I feel that the choice of using black and white for this art piece is to relate the viewers to a newspaper photograph. During wartime, newspaper is one of the most efficient and effective way to broadcast information to the public and newspaper articles were still in black and white at that time. Thus, by using black and white is a good way to bring viewers back to the past and into the correct time frame.

Moreover, no one in rational mind would want to go to war as it would result in death and misery. Therefore, the choice of black and white could also transmit the sadness and lifelessness of war to the viewers.

From the art piece, it depicts that war does not only affect the human beings, but also animals and the nature. It clearly illustrates a disfigured bull on the left and a mourning horse with a spear-like object protruding from its mouth and its body. Beside the bull is a woman in grief over a dead child in her arms. It depicts the cruelty side of war that involves the killing of innocence.

Under the horse is a seriously injured soldier, which could be identified from the collars of his uniform and clear ridges on his palm that portrays the tough trainings that he had gone through. The severed arm and the broken blade suggest that he could have just got into a fierce battle with his opposition. It truly portrays the pain and agony felt by the soldiers as well as the innocence.

Moving the attention to the flower near the broken blade; I feel that the purpose of the flower is to show the damage caused onto the nature and to show the contrast between peace and brutal war. It makes the viewers ponder over the question whether a war is evitable.

On the hands of all the victims, there is a star-like figure on their palm. Based on some of my research, the star-like figure is called stigmata and they are primarily associated with the Roman Catholic faith. According to Wikipedia, stigmata are bodily marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus. Applying that to the art piece, I feel that it is to let the viewers experience the exact feeling of the victims during the war which is very similar to the crucifixion process.

To the left of the horse is a bird standing on a table behind the bull. It clearly shows a struggling bird in panic state as it seems to be flapping its wings. To the right of the horse is a floating female figure who seems rather frightened while witnessing the scenes before her. In my personal opinion, she might have hid outside the house and witness the whole incident through the window. As she stretched out her hand with a lamp, she witnessed the grudge scene which caused her to be in a traumatized state. To the bottom is another woman with a badly injured knee, limping into the scene as if she is trying to save someone from the killing scene. These are some illustrations of the sufferings during wartime.

Lastly, on the far right, there is another victim who was killed in the scene. It seems that he was burned to death when trying to escape from the house.

From this evaluation exercise, I feel that Pablo Picasso tried to suppress the viewers’ consciousness which in favour our subconscious mind. We will be much focused while trying to analyze the art piece which opens up our subconscious mind and allows us to explore the art piece without any limits. And that is why automatists believe that images should not be burdened with meaning or perception that might hinder our thinking process.