Pictures that Lie

I chose a picture of President Obama inside of an elevator. To manipulate it, I used the magic wand, lasso, conversion to black and white, adjusted darkness levels, stamp tool, render tool, and the text tool. I chose to manipulate this picture to express my disapproval of President Obama, and to bring to light the similarities he shares with infamous leaders of history. The picture originated from Callie Shell, a digital journalist who was allowed to follow President Obama during personal times. The picture has had Kim Jong Il, Osama bin Laden, Darth Vader, and Hitler added to the photograph while President's Obama's wife and others were removed. I manipulated this picture to show my disapproval of President Obama, and make people see that he has similarities as the people in the picture with him. President Obama's new policy of universal health care is making America turn into a socialist country, when what America so great is its freedom. The picture can be harmful to President Obama, but because of the presence of radical terrorists, the picture is more of a satire than a picture being used to harm Obama's apprearance. The picture relates to the article because the addition of the extra men is clearly fake because of time, location, and ficitonal differences, if the men were more realistic, it might not be as easy to determine that the picture was doctored. The article discussed the growing difficulty in identifying altered pictures, and laws that need to be passed to stop it. I agree with the article. I think there needs to be laws passed that do not allow photos to be doctored in a negative or positive way to be published, unless that the author acknowledges that the photo has been changed from its original purpose.

Plummer, Daryl. "Give Counterfeit Reality a Closer Look." USA Today 24 July 2004: 13a. Web. 11 Apr 2010.