Altered Images 150 years of posed and manipulated photography
By Billy Kung
Currently on exhibit at the Bronx Documentary Center until August, “Altered Images: 150 Years of Posed and Manipulated Documentary Photography” is a fascinating and important show which focuses on disputed images in photojournalism and documentary photos that have been faked, staged, or altered.
Since the invention of photography over a hundred and eighty years ago, due to its mechanical, apparently objective nature and to its near replication of human sight, we often confuse photography with truth, as the common saying goes: “The Camera does not lie.” In particular, journalistic and documentary photography have always been seen as a powerful indicator that in its easy comprehension is innocent of both deception and the intent to deceive. In fact, photography’s relationship with reality is as tenuous as that of any other medium. Despite its apparent simplicity, it constitutes a rich and variegated language, capable like other languages, of subtlety, ambiguity, revelation and distortion.
