The Digital Composite (books)

Pedro Meyer ‘Truths & Fictions’

Pedro Meyer’s book is full of digitally altered images, photos that have been created out of other photos using post – production software. The main theme that runs throughout the book is contemporary United States and native culture of Oaxaca. Mexico.

Some images are supported with relevant quotes by other photographers, artists and film makers. At the end of the book there is an interview with Meyer and photographers own comments and explanations about how he created some of his images.

Live Broadcast, San Juan Mixtepec, Oaxaca, 1990/93. Pedro Meyer

This week I looked at Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer’s work. His collection of work in book ‘Truths and Fictions: a journey from documentary to digital photography ‘ at first was quite confusing experience as every image kept me guessing if it’s ‘real’, perspective trick or product of digital special effects.
I also realized how much we trust pictures because they’re pictures. That is crazy because it takes away our responsibility to investigate the truth for ourselves to approach the images with care and with caution. Meyer’s images maintain sense of narrative and surrealistic ways. With his collection he creates relationship between space and time which is a creative way of strategy for producing a documentary image.

Mexican Serenade, Yuma, Arizona, 1985/92. Pedro Meyer.

Meyer’s ‘Truth & Fictions’ series are commonly called digitally – altered images but which Meyer refers to as found and made images. He does not change his images to mislead but to point out things we might otherwise not see.
Meyer describes his images as being documentary truthful and ‘real’. That sounds absurd and impossible as digital composites are used to create the wrong impression, to shock the public and mislead the public and we come across that every day by different media such as press, campaigns and News. However Meyer thinks that with his digital composites he will ‘open’ the viewers’ eyes and make everyone look more critically towards all flow of information.


References:

Meyer,P (1995) Truth & Fiction: a journey from documentary to digital photography, Aperture Foundation, New York.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG6Bu8gpoYg (accessed online 05\03\12)

Image from : http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=pedro+meyer+live+broadcast&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1680&bih=896&tbm=isch&tbnid=mHhImfKwh7Wk5M:&imgrefurl=http://qaysi.livejournal.com/&docid=Un4aNy4lObJe3M&imgurl=http://pics.livejournal.com/qaysi/pic/00005dba/s320x240&w=320&h=225&ei=jQVWT_HDCfSA0AXTnITzCQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=612&vpy=163&dur=369&hovh=180&hovw=256&tx=139&ty=122&sig=117773917198373748374&page=1&tbnh=152&tbnw=199&start=0&ndsp=30&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0