The Truth About Photos

There is an ongoing debate on the legitimacy of photography: do photos accurately portray reality, or do they hide more than they display? It can be argued both ways.

I'm sure we're all familiar with a certain photo of a certain article of clothing that took over the internet about a month ago -- THE dress. This photo baffled humans across the globe because for the first time, differences in perception were glaringly evident on a visual level. My brain simply could not comprehend the fact I saw black and blue while other people saw white and gold. We were looking at the same photo! My mind was blown. I began to question the validity of reality like never before. Photos were an utter lie.

Now that the craze is over, I understand that the dress photo works by some scientific concept involving retinas. However, contrary to my previous distrust of photos, I later saw a post in my Facebook feed that brought me to a striking realization: photos that may not display a genuine image can in fact be altered to express a deeper truth. Days after the dress infested the Internet, The Salvation Army took advantage of this photo to raise awareness of female abuse. They created a photo that looks like this:

Don't worry, the dress is supposed to look white and gold here. Obviously, this photo is not 100% authentic. This girl is probably not a victim of abuse, but a professional model, and those "bruises" are probably just body paint or a really big waste of eye shadow. But the image as a whole conveys a deep message: abuse against women is often overlooked in society. "Why is it so hard to see black and blue?" It's a clever spinoff and an prime example of how an edited photo, when manipulated correctly, can actually express a principle that words or actions cannot. In this way, photos are a pretty reliable medium of communication after all.