What are some of the most misleading photos ever taken?

Sure, then they are misled. But those who aren't fooled are not misled. That's all I'm saying. It's the being fooled part that's misleading, not the distortion part.

 

Is the dead horse moving yet?

 

Sorry, Ed. I thought you were asking me a legitimate question and I was giving you a legitimate answer. Don't know what the dead horse is, but please don't explain it. And . . . thanks for nothing.

 

"Beating a dead horse" is an analogy regarding futility of thrashing a dead topic. I think we all understand what it means to mislead through photography.

Thank you for the lessons in vocabulary. Next time I will try to keep mine no higher than the standard established by the New York Times style book - 6th grade.

 

I said would follow the NYT style, at least in terms of complexity. How does this suggest I find it problematic?

 

You didn't answer my question. "How does this suggest I find it [the NYT style book] problematic?"

I agree that language isn't a moving target, unless you read nearly any text message thread by a teenager, or newscasters who think "busted" is a synonym for "broken." I confess that I am not a professional writer, nor do I play one on TV. I think for a living

 

Of course Ed wasn't referring to anything to do with style. Ed was simply establishing himself as being on the "right" by calling the NYT which is "left" as 6th grade. How educated...

"Nerds on the left, nerds on the right" - Frank Zappa

 

C'mon now. It's not a criticism, rather a reasonable goal. You probably heard it first from an high school English teacher.

Writing at a 6th grade level is typical for newspapers, magazines and especially business communications, where easy comprehension and fluidity is desirable. Early versions of word processing programs (e.g., Word Perfect) actually computed the grade level, with suggestions how to conform to a more readable version.

Other parts of style include the order of paragraphs. Newspapers and business letter must "grab" you in the first paragraph. Not many people go beyond that point. Academic letters, on the other hand, start from basics and build to a conclusion. All the good stuff is saved for last. Guess how that works out in the business world. Engineers aren't much better. I've read countless proposals devoid of paragraphs, sometimes punctuation.

Compare that to the dozens of invitations to join class action suits I get every year. Legalese is NOT intended to be readable. It's half Latin, and not very good Latin at that. Maybe writing style would make a good topic for a "misleading" thread.

 

I did participate in a class action suit against AT&T, by default. My share of the multi-million dollar judgement was $0.17.

I bought a copy of the NYT's style book for use in my freshman composition class in college. Perhaps it's time to dust it off again (real dust). It's on a shelf in a back bedroom, next to an equally dusty thesaurus.

 

You are a personality, Ed....like marmite a acquired taste..

One of a very few in a world of conformity., Sad thought.

 

Lamenting about the world being too conformist is not an act of nonconformity. It's an estranged individualism deprived of love. To paraphrase Chris McCandless' moment of clarity at the end of his journey: love is only real when shared. And to share is to conform.

 

Are you equating politicians with quarks? I agree that they can be equally difficult to understand, but the concept of politicians being fundamental building blocks of the Universe is horrifying!

 

hello fred g:
i agree with what you have said and i do not agree with what you have said.
yes if you know what a photograph is you know by definition that it is an abstraction of reality
( 2D not 3D, black and white sometimes, not color, not true to life but maybe it can be &c )
but also misleading, or have an opportunity to be misleading.

like this

 

I have no problem seeing some photos as misleading. What I've been saying is that I think it irrational to see EVERY photo as misleading. I do agree that photos do have the opportunity to be misleading, but many photos don't take that opportunity and don't mislead. It's the EVERY that I was quarreling with, not the potential capability of photos to be misleading.

 

i see and understand what you are saying,but ...
i view mislead to be the same as manipulate
and every image made has been manipulated somehow
whether it was the intent of the person who made it or the "medium" itself.

 

Got it. I don't view mislead to be the same as manipulate, so that probably accounts for a lot of the difference we're expressing.

I think, with a lot of photos, some degree of manipulation actually gets them to BETTER represent the reality they captured (if that's what the photographer is trying to do). So I think, in some cases, NOT being misleading actually requires manipulation. Think of very sunny days with strong shadows. Your eye will often see much more detail than the camera will capture. By getting as good an exposure as you can and doing a little manipulation of shadows (dodging, etc.) you can get the photo to look more like it looked to your eye. To leave that photo as it comes out of the camera could at times be the more misleading thing to do.

 

Manipulation is an action a person performs. It is at least possible that a photograph may somehow be misleading without the photographer having any such intent.

 

This cover of a no longer trusted magazine:
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/natgeo_statue_liberty_sea_level.jpg

National Geographic’s Junk Science: How long will it take for sea level rise to reach midway up the Statue of Liberty?