Believe it or not, there was a time that Photoshop didn't exist. Twas was a dark time where terms like "healing brush" and "content aware fill" held no value to the photomanipulators of yore. If you had a bad negative, you either had to live with it or endure a great amount of painstaking spotting with the world's smallest paintbrush. If that doesn't sound like a barrel full of laughs, it's because it wasn't...but hey, photo-retouching was considered an art. Beyond darning away blemishes and wrinkles, photographers were always interested in pushing the medium past what the eye could see, with some even bending the visual truth just enough to fool the unknowing viewer. Today of course, we're almost too skeptical of any picture's veracity thanks to the magic of Photoshop, but would you be able to know the difference if regular Joe in the 1860's? As of October 11th, you'll be able to relive the Pre-Photoshop era with the Met Museum's newest photography exhibit all about photomanipulation in the olden days.
"Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the first major exhibition devoted to the history of manipulated photography before the digital age. Featuring some 200 visually captivating photographs created between the 1840s and 1990s in the service of art, politics, news, entertainment, and commerce, the exhibition offers a provocative new perspective on the history of photography as it traces the medium’s complex and changing relationship to visual truth."
The show is split into seven sections, ranging from the pursuit of the perfect image to creating dream-like masterpieces that rival paintings. The exhibition also delves deep into sketchiness of political censorship and media mishaps with falsified photographs. With 200 photographs, there's definitely going to be a lot to see. I'm especially excited to see Erwin Blumenfield's iconic Vogue cover and Richard Avedon's Audrey Hepburn portrait in the in the "Pictures in Print" section. The show is open through January 27, 2013 and it's sponsored by (surprise) Adobe. If you live in the tri-state area, you really have no excuse not to go spend a buck make a suggested donation at the Met and see some really cool photographs.