They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Photography, once used as a form of capturing memories, now serves as one of the biggest forms of communication. Photos have changed from being a source of freezing a moment to remember to actually becoming the moment. With the new types of media and the need to show off what is being done in a visual manner has resulted in people capturing a moment rather than living in it. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the evolution of photography and photo editing and the ultimate psychological effect of the visual distortion of reality.
History of Photography
The art of photography dates back several decades. Photography did not begin to be looked at as an art form until long …show more content…
With greater quality pictures it is also easy to assume that an image has been, at least in part, edited. Just as the camera and types of photography have advanced, as have the tools used to edit them. What was once a simple editing of the exposure of light or the contrast, has progressed to become a complete alteration of the picture. Photo editing software continues to advance to include endless possibilities. The scope of the amount of editing that can be done is vast. For example, rather than simply cropping a picture to remove an unwanted object or person from the shot, it is preferred to digitally remove the object or person from the shot and allow for the surroundings of the photo to remain the same; similarly, one can digitally include a person in the photo and have the image edited to appear as though the person was present in the original …show more content…
This allows proletariat class to be able to alter their images in a similar fashion as the upscale, bourgeoisie celebrities. Gone are the days where one could take a picture and simply post it. Now, individuals edit their photos with the mobile photo editing apps and then sort through filter after filter until the image is deemed social media worthy and then it is posted. Much of this is at the fault of media and the unrealistic perceptions of beauty around the