Thread by @CarlaJeanStokes

One thing that can be a little bit surprising is the degree to which pre-digital photographers were able to alter their photographs.

In fact, the tools we use today in Photoshop are often named after their darkroom counterparts: dodge, burn, mask, layer, and more 👇🏼🧵

Today I want to talk about what happens usually after the print goes to press (as opposed to changes the photographer themselves might do, though they could).

This was the subject of my 2019 Elaine Ling Fellowship with the @ImageCentreTO. I examined a collection of FWW photos that once belonged to the New York Times & got interested/excited about the ways they had been retouched.

(Getcha someone who looks at you the way I look at #warphotos)

SO, when thinking about early press photography, I like to think about photographic alterations in 4 basic forms.

The first is: enhancing features that already exist. This is a pretty simple one. It’s a matter of using a pen, pencil, or other ink or paint to outline or emphasize features before a photograph goes to print.

https://twitter.com/CarlaJeanStokes/status/1229443445111967744?s=20&t=Qw5qFocrMoNQxGa9izcbSg

The second type is: adding elements that did not exist before. This could be painting in clouds or shell bursts.

It’s interesting one because it’s normally done by a photograph editor who did not take the photograph and perhaps has never witnessed a war themselves. They’re essentially showing us what they imagine war should look like.

Here’s my awful reproduction from the Image Centre’s book “The Faraway Nearby." The original photograph was taken by Ivor Castle during the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Since the caption says the gun is firing, the NYT artist has added smoke to their print.

(Sorry for the bad image. I don’t have the rights to their print collection and am thus reproducing from a book that’s published. In fact, you can buy it here!: shop.ryersonimagecentre.ca/products/the-f…)

Sometimes when elements are added to a photograph, part of the print is masked off with white paper and painted upon, just because it's a little easier OR it helps to re-shape that photograph (from landscape to portrait) to fit a layout better.

The third type is: taking elements out of a photograph. This is done by applying media to the photographic print before it goes to press.

https://twitter.com/CarlaJeanStokes/status/1562077209518411778?s=20&t=Qw5qFocrMoNQxGa9izcbSg

As you can see, the person on the far right of the original photograph has been painted over. The photo editor has decided that the image should be in portrait orientation, thus cutting someone off.

It was a pretty common convention for the time that you wouldn’t have important information escaping the frame. Thus, we paint over the important information, clean up the “flaws” and we’re off to the races.

There were maybe 2-3 similar instances in the Image Centre’s collection of NYT prints, though I’ll hopefully talk about those in an actual journal article. Suffice it to say, painting someone who is considered extraneous out of a scene was a thing 100+ years ago in the news.

The fourth element of pre-digital “photoshop” that I run across a lot in my work is, of course, the creation of composite photographs. And THAT is a thread that will be coming up soon to follow this one.

/peace out.