Ritchin: After Photography

After reading the first two chapters in Fred Ritchin’s After Photography I began to question the truthfulness in today’s photography. Images that we see in magazines and newspapers we assume to have actually happened at some point in the past. Whether they are a real place, person or object is now not as certain. How do we know that an image is not just a compliment of other images to create the perfect setting or person that they are unable to find in real life? Such as photographer Brian Walski who was fired from the Los Angeles Times after it was found that he combined multiple images of the war in Iraq to create what he believed a better depiction. There has even instances when companies will combine facial features of multiple women to create a virtual woman who they believe to be an image of ideal beauty. After reading Ritchin, I wonder how many of the images that I see on a daily basis in magazines and advertisements are real and how many are fabricated to deceive the viewer. Personally, I try to do as little retouch on my photographs as possible, because after a certain point I feel as though it is no longer a true representation of the original image but rather its digital counterpart.