Response Essay 2

Image is everything in today's society, which is why the doctoring of photos has become so widely popular by the media. People no longer take beauty for what it's worth, instead relying solely on the fact that if they don't like the way they look or the shape of their body, it can be fixed. It is this belief that has given the people who are victims of this either by choice or by circumstance legitimate gripes when it comes to the discovery of these pictures. And yet some magazines still run fixed images and even run disclaimers that say this image is either a composite or it is not actually a picture of the person depicted. Take for example the picture of Martha Stewart, who was recently released from jail on insider trading charges. The cover of Newsweek depicts her coming out of a curtain with a smile on her face and much skinnier than when she went in. It was later learned that this image was just Martha's head, the rest of her body was that of a model. Newsweek called it an "illustration" but the public knew better. In terms of the Tienanmen Square photo where the lone student stands up to a row of tanks, that photo later was doctored by adding rows and rows of people surrounding the tanks on the sides of the street. The effects of this experiment by UC Irvine shows how people recollections can be stirred and public opinion can be changed by simply combining two events of the same nature. When talking about deceptively doctoring photos, we only have to look at the covers of Newsweek and Time magazines featuring OJ Simpson. Newsweek ran the original mugshot of OJ, while Time added black shadows to his face to make it look more sinister. To me, regardless if you thought he was guilty or not, he has the right to a fair trial and this picture already depicts him as guilty and in an unappealing light. In my opinion, the only legitimate doctoring or fixing of a photo should be white balancing it and making the colors more vibrant to look at, therefore making the picture more appealing. Fixing people or making them look skinnier, prettier, or not using their bodies at all is just unethical and deceptive.