Two Worlds Collide

This week were are discussing photographic images that are digitally remade in order to get a different look on the original photograph. The pictures and images by the artists Keith Cottingham and Aziz and Cucher directly relates to this weeks topic. These artists used the technique of digitally modifying their photos in order to get depict what they want. In Aziz and Cucher’s art photos, the use of digitally modifying these photos is obvious. Aziz and Cucher distorted the people’s faces in order to make it look like art, which is a bit creepy, but very meaningful. The people are posing in a certain way, very casually as if they were just taking a regular photo, but the only difference is, the faces are distorted. This means that everyone is human, and deep down inside, everyone is the same. It does not matter how one looks, it is what is inside that really matters. By distorting the faces, this indicates that no one should be frowned upon because of their look, it what is inside that counts.
Keith Cottingham uses this technique as well, but instead of distorting the images, he cuts and pastes images. He also digitally remade some photographs by taking the image of the boys face and placing it onto two other bodies. He shows the boy in three different types of positions and puts them all together in one final portrait.
In this day of age, there are many ways one can manipulate pictures. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out how to digitally modify a photograph. I see my younger sister on the computer cutting and pasting photos on her Myspace all of the time. She is manipulating other photographs online as well just because she knows how to use the modern technology. One can find manipulated pictures everywhere, especially on the internet. There are many pictures on the web of so-called celebrities scandals. Some websites show a celebrity’s face on another person’s nude body in order to sell false photos. People cut and pasted these images and illegally posted them on the internet. I have also noticed many digitally modified photographs in magazines as well. This presents many problems to the teenage group as well as the young kids. The teenagers and younger kids see photos of skinny blonde haired girls with a six pack and large breasts actually believing that this is the way one has to look in order to be called beautiful. So these kids are brain-washed from the beginning, and not knowing any better, these kids resort to many harmful ways in order to look like these fake Barbie’s, when in reality, these photos are not even real, just manipulated pictures. The things people will do in order to look like the person on the cover of a magazine. One will undergo surgery, unhealthy eating diets, and many experiences diseases as well, such as anorexia and bulimia.
I love seeing images of “spirits” in photos. I used to believe in those photos because I would never understand how the shadow of a young kid could appear in the photograph, but since I read the lecture, it kind of saddened me. It was just a spot that the photographers forgot to clean off. So sad, but some pictures are questionable, as I saw on the website related to spirits, so we might just never know.