Not only is Kate’s Photoshop bodge job too good to be any amateur experiment, it also breaks the principles of what makes a good photograph, writes Andy Blackmore
Despite my better judgement, since I’ve been long convinced that the internet is a curse upon all mankind, I’ve decided to join the mob, grab my pitchfork and add my twopenn’orth over “that” Photoshop failure. Having observed, mouth becoming ever more agape, the growing scale of Kate Middleton’s photographic faux pas I can no longer stay silent.
Now, I’ve digested and cogitated long and hard. However, despite the ageing brainpower at my disposal, I’m left with one simple and abiding sentiment. Thus this single lonely thought echoes around my brain. Rebounding against the walls getting louder. Shouting at me, nay, screaming WHY did she do it?
Now, it’s my job to look at photographs all day and still, I don’t know what she was trying to achieve. Nor do I believe she was the author of her own misfortune since the bodge job is far too good to be any amateur experiment. It is, however, good enough to be a professional failure. In all honesty, I don’t think for one second it was actually her hand on the mouse or tablet that manipulated the original image, but that’s just a sideshow.
We all make mistakes, and I can easily excuse the hand that erred but I can’t ever forgive the one that guided it. No excuses can ever absolve the idiot whose philistine idea it was in the first place. The very thought still makes my ears tingle with outrage, for it shows such a crass disregard for the principles I believe to be the granite bedrock of press photography and photojournalism: the concept of “the decisive moment”.
This was the title of an influential book by Henri Cartier-Bresson, but it has come to define what all good photographers are trying to capture. In a nutshell, this is that one unique moment in time when all the stars align, when fate and timing coincide to produce an image with such synergy that the whole is massively greater than the simple sum of its parts. The secret sauce that elevates this art. It is the difference between a snap and a photograph. The idea that you can clone the constituent parts of a few happy snaps and combine them with technology to contrive a photograph makes my blood boil.
Once again I have to ask why. Why would a photographer, remember Kate has an honorary lifetime membership of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), ever believe it’s justifiable to construct their own decisive moment? It’s the very definition of a lie. You have faked a moment in time that never happened. And even worse, fundamentally, you have not understood the nature of photography.
Now, I do understand the forces at work that seek to corrupt the decisive moment and the foul hand of PR, but once again I have to ask why? Why is there such a relentless quest in pursuit of so-called perfection? Why did the Princess of Wales or whoever advises her feel the need to construct a perfect image of her family? I’m sure that the original photograph, warts and all, would have been charming. A perfect record of a perfect day that happened. Rather than some identikit construct and testament to fake news.
For god’s sake what on earth is wrong with imperfection, why do we feel it’s necessary to tamper with time in pursuit of perfection? What is so perfect about perfection? Can’t we just accept things for what they are? The random nature of life gives it meaning, and context gives it value.
Yet we continually try to take things out of context and command time using such tools as Photoshop. Yet all we ever do is perpetuate lies, create myths and set unobtainable goals.
Queen Elizabeth II once said that royalty had to be seen to be believed. Who’ll believe what they see now?