Reaction to Photographic Lies Assignment

This project was challenging but rewarding for a number of reasons. How to approach this assignment was the first major challenge for reasons that are rather apparent based on our class discussions; lying’s role in photography is extremely subjective and can be interpreted very arbitrarily. I chose to present a pretty straightforward and blatant lie by placing Bowdoin in locations other than Brunswick. The second major challenge this project presented me with was how to successfully convince people that Hubbard Hall was actually a part of the landscape of Italy, London, Copenhagen etc. Having no background of Photoshop whatsoever, the process of creating my photos was incredibly frustrating. At times I was made well aware of what a “language” Photoshop constitutes and me not speaking Photoshop fluently made the process of manipulating these images very time consuming and trying in the beginning.

Aesthetically and technically speaking, I am very pleased with the final results. I think the cityscape sunset images of London and Edinburgh were particularly successful due to the subtle incorporation of Hubbard Hall. In retrospect, I sort of wished I had used this approach for all my images because I think these were the ones that challenged my viewers the most. I spent a great deal of time questioning how to present my images and am happy with my decision to turn them into tangible “postcards”, which added another dimensionality of lying (even though they might not be that convincing). I would have liked to experiment more with the back of the card however, by perhaps including a written message. Unfortunately, a limited amount of time prevented me from exploring potential possibilities.

It was rather interesting to see how the rest of the class approached this assignment and I was particularly impressed with the varying degrees of interpretation. The wide assortment of topics speaks to just how subjective and interpretative photographic lies truly are.