Reflection on In Our Own Image

In this book, the fluidity of the digital means that photos taken and stored by digital ways can be easily edited or faked, which is like the feature of fluid, compared to film photography that takes more effort to edit, which seems to be more objective and reliable.

An example of using the fluidity of digital is Calob Castellon, a famous photoshop artist. In most of his work, he combines photographing with digital editing, and makes the pictures more dynamic and attractive. By processing the photos, artists can use the photos as a material of art works, giving the photos more meaning than the reality.

However, the fluidity of the digital is a double-edged sword. Though it enables people to play with amazing effects, it can also increase the spread of fake information, especially when some significant social incidents happen. Those violations of imaging editing has undermined the credibility of online visual resource.

Despite the possibility of fake photos, photography is a intuitive method to capture reality, and is used as evidence in many controversies. However, even a photo hasn’t undergone any editing, it can reflect part of the reality, since it can’t include everything in a scene, and can only reflect a moment of reality. The explanition of a photo varies, and can be more subjective, while a text can include some opionions, which gives the readers a direction to think. Compared to text, a photo is more reliable because it leaves less space for imagination and takes more effort to edit, especially for those old photos taken by film cameras. When comparing video with photography, the both have different strengths. A photograph can better reflect the details of a scene, while a video mainly reflect the movement and sound. A video can show the change of an object as time goes by, and telling a story by a video is much simpler than telling a story by a photo.