Customer Reviews

Photo Fakery: A History of Deception and Manipulation

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This is a fascinating book. After reading it, I found myself searching through the newspaper and magazines trying to find faked photos. It really makes you wonder about how much the media has been truthful with us over the years, and what the real story behind some of the world's most famous photos is. Definitely recommended for the novice and expert alike.

Given that photo fakery has been widespread since at least World War One, it is amazing that so few books have covered this topic in depth. The author's extraordinary techniques of photometric analysis are worth studying, and his descriptions of tampered photos are incredible! Basically, I wonder about the credibility of the major US news maagazines just as much as I marvel at the handiwork of the former East Germany, Soviet Union, and even China--they regularly manipulate photos, just in different ways. This fine book gives new meaning to the term "pictures don't lie".

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a faked picture is worth a thousand lies. The author uncovers faked photos from the civil war to the Clinton Administration. In an easy to read and understanding style, Brugioni uses his CIA photo interpreter experience to expose manipulated photos used to influence public thinking. The non-photgrapher as well as the pro will appreciate and more than not become alarmed at the lies both domestic and foregin governments have used to influence citizens. Once you read this book you will never look at another photograph without questioning its validity.

After seeing a C-Span program where the Author showed slides of actual, then altered photos from the book, I was so fascinated that I went out the next morning and bought the book, and it was BETTER than I expected! I found it so amazing that even back in the 1860's, this kind of thing could be done. Absolutely a MUST-HAVE book for history buffs!

People are generally aware about how facts can be distorted and misrepresented in the text and art media but tend to be less familiar with how easily photographs can be altered for the purposes of deception. In fact, many people give too much credibility to photographs because they assume that photographs always present scenes realistically. Mr. Brugioni shows not only how easily photographs are altered to distort the truth, he also conveys an idea of how widespread the practice of photo manipulation is in the modern media. I recommend this book strongly for people who are interested in media ethics or want to better understand the role of images in communication by governments, advertisers, and news organizations.

This was very entertaining and caught my attention. It opened my eyes to a lot of tricks in photography that we tend to miss.

I think this is a book that all digital artists should read. It would show them what not to do.

A fascinating look at all types of photo manipulation, from Communist propaganda to fashion magazines. The book is hard to put down if you have any interest in the ways in which the photographic medium has been used to fool the gullible. The sad story of faked photos of MIA/POWs in Southeast Asia was particularly interesting. My only complaint is that the book seems a little pricey for something short enough to be read in one day w/out much effort.

"Photo Fakery," by Dino A. Brugioni, VA, Brassey's, 1999, ISBN: 1-57488-166-3 (HC) 228 pgs. text plus 8 pg. Notes, 8 pg. Biblio., 7 pg. Index. 8 1/2" x 11"
CIA officer for 50 years & a founder of the CIA's National Photographic Center, Brugioni chronicles deception & manipulation of photographs used in fraud, deception & propaganda purposes for diverse reasons & exposes methods of photo fakery & the analytic methods used in their detection.

The book is exceedingly well-researched, soundly illustrated & authored for the middling, curious reader & does not require scientific background. It is not a "how to create fakery" book, but rather "how to detect fakery." I highly sanction this treatise that has no real counterpart aside from Wm. Mitchell's 1992 "The Reconfigured Eye." The book is timely, noting that digital imaging & Adobe's Photoshop (& other "paint" programs) have forever changed veracity of photographs currently "snapped" at the rate of 40 to 50 billion daily. It is conceivable the majority of pictures appearing in print are digitally altered, exceeding those which are not. Our concerns are largely with those images in which the truth or accuracy has been compromised.

For generations, a photograph has been assumed to be a superior form of information: "The camera doesn't lie." But as Dino Brugioni demonstrates in "Photo Fakery," if the camera didn't, then the photographer or editor often did.
With graphic manipulation software costing as little as $50, the authenticity of any photograph should be suspect. However, in American courts photos are usually admitted as evidence without much concern over their history.
Brugioni says few lawyers are even aware of how unreliable photos can be.
It extends beyond the courts. Everyone sees images, in the news, in advertisements, in flyers (and, since this book wa published, on the Internet).
Sometimes it is obvious the photo has been altered, and the intent is merely to catch eyes: A famous example is a car morphing into a tiger in a TV commercial. Sometimes it is not so obvious but apparently inconsequential: Brugioni shows a picture of three generations of the George Bush family made by joining two photos taken in different places because the whole group couldn't be assembled at one time.
And sometimes, the consequences can be grave: Brugioni recounts the 1950 episode in which Sen. Millard Tydings of Maryland, running for re-election, was sabotaged by McCarthyite rightwingers, who circulated a faked photo of Democrat Tydings supposedly conferring with Communist leader Earl Browder. In the few days before the election, Tydings was unable to make the public aware that the photo was a fake, and he lost by a narrow margin.
The Tydings-Browder fake was crude. After reading "Photo Fakery," most people probably could spot the warning signs, though proving a fake usually requires time and special techniques.
"There is still no manual for the lay person to use in discerning fake photography," writes Brugioni, who retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as a senior officer in its National Photographic Interpretation Center.
Brugioni's book is not intended as a complete manual, just an introduction to the problem. And a problem it is, in his eyes.
"An ethical concern is growing in both academic and professional journalistic circles," he writes, "that the manipulation of one photo will destroy the credibility of all."
The first guarantee of authenticity should be the publisher. Most newspapers have ethical rules against tampering with news photographs. But Brugioni shows that many, even the most prestigious, have done so anyway. Also, news organizations, even good ones, sometimes get taken in themselves.
When photos are published over the Internet, the question of reputation becomes even murkier.
The Communists were famous for faking photos, and Brugioni uses many examples from his work at the CIA in "Photo Fakery." But he also shows that fakery -- whether malicious, artistic, commercial or humorous -- began almost as soon as the first photographs were developed.
Nor did Communists and Nazis have a monopoly on photo fakery. Brugioni show an example of a faked photo of Bill Clinton in the Oval Office, in which a congressman moved himself closer to the president than he had been in real life.
Depending upon the target audience, faked photos need not always be very carefully done to be effective. Yet the tools for covering up evidence of fakery are getting better.
"There appears to be no limit to what the computers can do. We have ventured out to the frontiers -- both moral and legal," writes Brugioni.
While computers can manipulate photos to trick and deceive, the same programs can also be used for desirable ends: using software to reconstruct the appearance of a person known only from a skull helps both science (anthropology) and police (discovering the identity of skeletons).
"Photo Fakery" is interesting reading just for the historical accounts of famous fakes. But it is also important as a window into a problem of modern life that most of us have never stopped to worry about.
In that respect, it deserves to rank alongside Elizabeth Loftus' "Eyewitness Testimony" as a book everybody should know.

This was a well-written and fascinating book. I thought I would spend more time looking at the pictures than reading the text, but I was so enthralled, I read it all. I also learned a lot about photography by seeing how photos can be edited to tell a different story. It made me appreciate why photo contests generally don't even allow a person to crop an image. This was one of the books that was recommended by the photography class I was taking and I highly recommend it too.