2024-03-12 21:38:10
Muhammad Hisham
Published on: Tuesday, March 12, 2024 – 11:37 PM | Last updated: Tuesday, March 12, 2024 – 11:37 PM
Warnings have escalated over the past few years regarding the spread of deepfake videos, digitally altered images and artificial intelligence as threatening our ability to distinguish fact from fiction.
Experts in the field of politics and media have warned of the danger of the public being led by these videos and images without scrutiny, for fear that some “malicious parties” will use these technologies in order to spread rumours.
In this context, the family photo of Princess Kate Middleton of Wales with her children on the occasion of Mother’s Day has become the most prominent story regarding manipulation of photographs since the beginning of this year, especially following Middleton apologized for making modifications to the photo published by Kingston Palace, which prompted five agencies to… International news that the image was deleted due to concerns related to image manipulation.
* History of the Royal Family with modified images
According to The Conversation news website, Princess Kate Middleton is not the first member of the British royal family to have such an experience with photography.
Britain’s Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, were among the first enthusiasts of these pictures, as they sat for pictures for the first time in 1840.
Early photographers in the photographic movement explored the artistic possibilities of photographic manipulation, valuing photography as an art form rather than a documentary medium.
“Composite” images are considered a type of image that is subject to manipulation. An example of this is the “Fade” image by the English photographer Henry Beech Robinson, which sparked controversy because of its subject matter (it depicts the moments of the death of a young girl surrounded by her grieving family).
This controversy made Robinson England’s most famous photographer and a leader of the pictorial movement that championed pictorial influences, which were seen as undermining the reliability of the medium.
* Queen Victoria support for photomontages
But Queen Victoria and Prince Albert sided with the photographers, purchasing copies of photomontages by Robinson, Oscar Gustav Rejlander and others.
Portrait photographers used similar techniques, and given the prevalence of these techniques, it is likely that many group shots of British royals in the 19th century were composite shots.
* How did the press in the past react to image manipulation?
The press at that time was not immune to image manipulation. Before it became possible to print photographs directly in newspapers in 1880, there was a widespread practice of copying photographs into drawings, embellishing them by adding color and improving composition.
This was not at all unusual in an era when many photography studios employed painters to spruce up portraits.
As printing advanced, journalists continued to alter their photographs, with one photographic magazine editor in 1898 boldly declaring that “all photographs are false.”
According to “The Conversation” website, this practice was not stopped due to technological innovation, but rather due to the development of social norms, as the term “fake” turned from being an acceptable method to a critical term, and photojournalists wanted to maintain their credibility, so they refrained from altering photos.
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