(story from 1988) That the camera cannot lie is true only in the sense that the images it captures must have existed in one form or another at some particular time. But it is not always clear if those images have been manipulated in some way to alter or to stage an event which never happened….
National Geographic magazine, long known for its reputation of photojournalism excellence, used the Scitex computer digitizer on two recent occasions (April and Feb 1988 issues). On a cover story of Egypt, pyramids were squeezed together to fit the cover’s vertical format. A picture story on Poland contained a cover photograph that combined an expression on a man’s face in one frame with a complete view of his hat in another picture. Both cover images were altered without a hint of possible detection and without a note to readers that such manipulation was performed. Click here to see the complete article, which was originally published in Media Development, 1/1988, 41-42.
