The pedagogical principle “It is better to see once than hear a hundred times” has long been known. It turns out to be purely and strictly relevant now that the iconic-clip consciousness dominates (Instagram, YouTube), and a demoted logo is found somewhere in the backyards.
Therefore, it is natural that the role of photography in revolutionary agitation is growing. What is better in terms of influencing the masses is not to talk about the horrors of pacification, but to show them.
It would be difficult to object to this form of choice of evidence when propaganda photo art did not use such technical methods as retouching and photo montage (now they use the generalized term “photoshop”).
First of all, the perfect quality of photographs is alarming. In the conditions of cruel pacification, about which so many public figures talk, and with rather primitive equipment, a reportage picture taken in completely unsanitary conditions will be of poor quality. When they take that photographer and look at him (after all, according to the public, they grab everyone), he does not have to set the light correctly, monitor the contrast, balance the light and dark parts of the image, etc.
Immediately we observe high quality, rather inherent in glamorous photo shoots. Bright, saturated color, with no excessive contrast spoiling the image, etc. A professional photographer will tell you how to do it: "You are wringing a single shot for hundreds of tons of photographic ore." With acceleration and pacification, when the situation in the frame changes with each moment, this is extremely difficult.
In addition to high quality, the unnaturalness of the composition confuses. In most cases, it is a gloomy series of "astronauts" in the background, and in the foreground - a beautiful woman, a young girl or even a small child.
But it is important that the gloomy people in the background and the bright heroine in the foreground are shown full-face. You can understand when a hero (but usually a heroine) tries to present riot police with violets (see flower children of the late 1960s), or to notify them ("Soldiers, brave children, where is your glory?"), Or to make some other act of communication. However, all these actions are inconvenient to perform backwards. With some credibility in the picture, the faces of the satraps and the rear of the hero would be visible.
Indeed, there is the Vatican genre when tourists take pictures against the backdrop of papal guards. Here, both tourists and porters are really full face. But no one sees these pictures as an image of the struggle against tyranny.
The masterpiece of photo art is the frame (glamorously highlighted, as for the Vogue photo shoot), where the same Rosgvardey are, and in the foreground sits an angel-like girl of about five, hugging a soft toy. The bright face of the child is filled with tears - just about she will cry. At the same time, it is completely unclear why the girl is alone and where the parents or persons replacing them are. Although tossing a young child is not appropriate even in a zoo or on a carousel - especially on the street where there is a vintilovo.
Or parents are people who are completely heartless, putting their blood in danger for the sake of agitation. Then, however, the claims should not be to the satraps, but to the parents. Or the child was not in danger, but simply made one of two photos. “You do not reflect - you distribute”, as A.A. taught Bulk.
The latter assumption is not so unbelievable. Photo montage in the service of the revolution has a long tradition. V.V. Shulgin in the book “What We Don't Like About Them” recalls an episode from 1899: “Petersburg students staged some political demonstrations on the streets of the capital. Police demanded that the demonstration cease; students did not obey. Cossacks were called. The Cossacks dispersed them with whips. The lie was that “pure, holy youth” forged photographic cards that depicted the beating of students by Cossacks; these cards were issued for instant snapshots from nature; "I, as an experienced amateur photographer, easily established that these cards were not pictures from nature, but drawings made by human hands and then taken with a photographic apparatus."
If at the end of the 19th century, with extremely primitive photographic techniques, this happened, it is difficult to admit that now, with the heyday of digital photography and graphic editors that allow you to work wonders in Photoshop, it never occurred to anyone to repeat the experience of pure, holy youth.
After all, photography in general is very sensitive to public requests. The birth of the photograph itself is counted from 1839, when L.J.-M. Daguerre reported to the French Academy that an image that fell onto a plate coated with a thin layer of silver iodide could be developed when exposed to mercury vapor. Two years later, A. Lefebvre, an assistant to Daguerre, was arrested in the Tuileries Garden for trying to sell a photograph of a woman copulating with a pony.
With cinema came out even faster. In 1896, the Lumiere brothers shot The Arrival of the Train, and in the same year, Albert Kirchner directed the pornographic film Mary Goes to Bed.
When artists are so swiftly perceiving technical innovations, and the regime is so bloody, it is quite possible to explain the inconsistencies of photo documents with the power of modern retouching and editing tools.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.