The History of Photo-Manipulation

Modern photography is plagued with manipulation. There are several pieces of software available on the global market for everyone from the pro photographer right down to the novice to use. With all the technological advances making it easier to 'correct' a photograph how can we, as the viewer, be sure that what we are seeing is real? and how does this modern culture of creating an 'ideal' image effect our perception of beauty?

The first photograph was created in 1814. It wasn't long before manipulation was invented, in the 1860's. One of the first images to be manipulated was an iconic portrait of US president Abraham Lincoln. (Below)

Although it may seem natural, the image above is not solely of Lincoln. The head of the portrait shows Lincoln himself and is a separate photo to that of the body, depicting John Calhoun. This shows that as early as the 1860's, photo-manipulation was being used to make individuals look more attractive in photographs.

Photo-manipulation wasn't a trend that went rapidly out of fashion, in fact the opposite is true. In 1930 Stalin was hiring people to use airbrush methods on photographs of himself to remove his enemies from the images. For Example see below.

As you can see here, the less important man has been removed from the frame, and the main focus of the image has been transferred to Stalin. 

By 1982 digital photo-manipulation was underway and one of the most iconic examples of this is the National Geographic magazine cover, below. 

The cover story was about Egypt and the Great Pyramid of Giza was digitally moved to fit the magazines vertical layout.  National Geographic, a magazine about nature was made to apologise for its unnatural image and they released the following statement "We no longer use that technology to manipulate elements in a photo simply to achieve a more compelling graphic effect. We regarded that afterwards as a mistake, and we would not repeat that mistake today."

In August 1989 when publishers started digitally placing the head of a person on the body of a model. Photographs were even posed intentionally for this purpose. These images were intended for the covers of magazines to make celebrities look more attractive. This kind of manipulation can sometimes still take place today.

In june 1994, a photographer's work was no longer secure, as it was under threat of being 'stolen' then edited to make a new image which another photographer or publisher could claim as their own work. This was a manipulation breakthrough and big titles and corporations such as 'Time' magazine, 'Newsweek' and the NBC, were found guilty of such crimes against photography and imaging. 

In September 2000, photo-manipulation was being used to create a more diverse culture in photographs. 

The university of Wisconsin edited a photograph on one of their leaflet covers to include a black student. The original image showed only white football fans and was taken in 1993. The Photo of the black student was taken in 1994 and they were merged in 2003. The university claimed they had spent all summer looking for culturally diverse images of their students but had no luck. 

In January 2003, actress Kate Winslet appeared on the cover of GQ magazine. The cover photograph, however had been edited using state of the art modern software. Kate had been made thinner. She said; "I don't look like that and more importantly I don't desire to look like that." She also called the re-touching  "excessive". 


Photo-manipulation is also widely used in the film industry to enlarge or shrink certain parts of actors or actress' to suit. For example, the Harry Potter 'poster' below was used by IMAX cinemas. The breasts of Actress Emma Watson have been digitally enlarged to make her more attractive. It was later revealed that this wasn't even an official poster, how the IMAX obtained it is as yet unknown. 

In July 2007 Redbook magazine was accused of 'contributing to the unattainable body image created by digital retouching'. When they published a heavily airbrushed and retouched image of Faith Hill on one of their covers. Redbook defended themselves by saying their retouching was in line with the 'industry standard'. Sadly this kind of thing still happens today, despite the fact its about time this standard was changed. The cover image can be seen below. 

Sometimes extensive manipulation can lead to certain photographs and advertising campaigns being banned by countries. The campaign below was banned in the UK in December 2009 because the model, Twiggy, had been too highly airbrushed around the eyes. The advertising standards agency thought this was misleading as the advert was promoting eye-cream. Olay corrected this mistake and re-released the campaign using an image 'without any retouching in the eye area'.