My Picture That Lies

For my picture that lies, I chose to do something from a touristic perspective. I have been to Europe on numerous occasions and I find it funny (not in the haha way but more in the weird/strange/bizzare way) that tourists, time after time, want to take pictures where they look as big as the monument or landmark that they are visiting. If you don't know what I mean you will see it in my picture. Clearly, my picture was manipulated, however the easiest way to do this without spending half an hour on photoshop elements is to stand far enough away from the landmark that it looks smaller than it actually is and strategically place yourself so it looks like you are leaning up against the Eiffel Tower. I picked the Eiffel Tower because I speak French and Paris is my favorite city in the world. I thought it would be funny to make a picture that so many people take (except in mine you can tell that the person is WAY too big for real life) so I looked for pictures of people leaning on walls and found this guy. The picture of the Eiffel Tower was from a tourism website and the picture of the guy was from a modeling site of somesort. The weather was a bit dreary in the picture of the Eiffel Tower so I played with hue, sautration, and brightness/contrast in order to make it look like an absolutely beautiful day in Paris. I blew up the picture of the guy and cut him out of the scene he was in, flipped him horizontally and stuck him right in there. No one wants to be in Paris on a rainy day so I figured I would spice things up a bit and the picture of the tower by itself, while awesome by itself, was a bit lonely (reasons for manipulating the pictures).

Personally, I don't think the manipulation was harmful since the picture, for all intensive purposes, could have been taken in person. Plus it really takes no political stance on anything, it's not controversial, so I really think it would be taken as more of a funny, clever joke rather than an attempt to sabatoge the Eiffel Tower (although we never really know with the French now do we?).

In the article I read, titled Altered Images, Nick Young discusses China's political popularity, or lack thereof, throughout the world. It is known that in their history, China has manipulated not only photographs but literature, news, internet information, television broadcasts and just about anything else that can be manipulated. Young states, "This is not an entirely suffocating level of thought control, since Chineses citizenss are quite ingenious at manipulating the permitted discourse to express their own concerns. But it does mean that many debates are arcane and obscure to outsiders, and that Chinese officials are inexperienced, and genereally useless, at presenting themselves to audiences that are not bound by the Party's syntax" (Young, 133). Although I am sure many pictures throughout history have been manipulated to secure reputation and other such things, I can assure you that my intentions for my "picture that lies", while the title itself sounds rather immoral, were true and genuine. Enjoy!