Sontag's Discussion on the Increase in Photo Manipulation

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Susan Sontag discusses the reality of the modern person’s addiction with “needing to have reality confirmed” by photos. Sontag says “we accept it as the camera records it” then goes to say “this is the opposite of understanding.” I agree with her wholeheartedly, as accepting photos as they are limits ones understanding of the world. The trust in photography led to the rise of pictures hoaxes, in which people take pictures out of context and assign it a new background; as well as Photoshop, which becomes increasingly popular as the years go by. Photoshop allows one to manipulate a photo to portray what they desire it to.
Sontag mentions how photos “hide more than [they] disclose,” which represents a pressing problem in the modern world. For example, on a popular social media website, Tumblr, a picture went viral of a girl clad in a filthy wedding dress, her head in her hands, on the subway. Out of context, this picture could imply many circumstances, a popular story being that her finance ditched her. In reality, her wedding was successful, and she partied all night, which led to he...

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