But I always use McDonald's (although any restaurant can be used here) as the core of the conundrum of fake vs. real. Look at a corporate shot of a cheeseburger and compare it to reality. The marketing cheeseburger is the platonic ideal of the product -- it's fresh, perfectly prepared with care with all of the ingredients visible. The cheeseburger on the ground looks like a crumpled napkin in comparison.
Is the marketing cheeseburger fake?
When I look at some of the more image-conscious Facebook/Instagram people, some of them are kinda insane with editing and retouching. My wife has an old acquaintance who produces a highly "optimized" picture at least twice a month. (With substantial retouch to her face and usually other body "enhancements". In the age of Instagram+Photoshop, when does someone cross the line from marketing cheeseburger to fraud?
Go further down the rabbit hole on that one; is makeup a form of fraud? Heels / lifts? Push up bras? Instagram has simply accelerated and magnified what already happens in good ol' regular life (and introduced mass distribution of it).
This reminds me of Magritte's The Treachery of Images [1] and Calvin and Hobbe's Photo Lies [2]. All images are inherently lies - colors aren't completely accurately reproduced, perspectives are changed - so what is the threshold for manipulating the subject until the photographed subject should be deemed "fake?"
I think that it lies on a spectrum, that a dolled up cheeseburger could be more fake in the sense that a telephoto black-and-white picture could be less authentic than a color photo taken at a focal length of ~40mm, but it depends on the viewer whether to accept or reject a photo as true.
So many late nights at that McDonalds, and in that area. (Dundas and Bathurst - Toronto). Even this video is an idealization. That corner gets grimy at night. At least it used to around that time. And that burger she bought was not what they look like coming out of there. I have to laugh a little...
At least they don't use waxes in the model burgers anymore. That's a step toward honesty, at least.
But I always use McDonald's (although any restaurant can be used here) as the core of the conundrum of fake vs. real. Look at a corporate shot of a cheeseburger and compare it to reality. The marketing cheeseburger is the platonic ideal of the product -- it's fresh, perfectly prepared with care with all of the ingredients visible. The cheeseburger on the ground looks like a crumpled napkin in comparison.
Is the marketing cheeseburger fake?
When I look at some of the more image-conscious Facebook/Instagram people, some of them are kinda insane with editing and retouching. My wife has an old acquaintance who produces a highly "optimized" picture at least twice a month. (With substantial retouch to her face and usually other body "enhancements". In the age of Instagram+Photoshop, when does someone cross the line from marketing cheeseburger to fraud?