《参考消息》2006年8月15日第6版:照片造假历史悠久
【英国《观察家报》8月13日文章】题:照片造假并不奇No surprise that the camera lies
Geoff Dyer
Sunday August 13, 2006
The Observer
'The camera is the eye of history,' declared Matthew Brady, who took some of the best-known photographs of the American Civil War. There is no directs________①for the quotation, so the remark is usually only 'attributed' to him. On the other hand, because of his poor eyesight, Brady himself didn't take many of the photographs commonly attributed to him. A number of 'his' pictures were actually taken by the team working for him. Still, we see what he meant: the camera shows what really happened, for the benefit ofposterity[1].(1)Most people aGREe that a photograph, unlike a drawing or painting, 'quotes' directly from reality. Hence its power as evidence.
Last week, the reliability of this form of evidence was again called into question when it was revealed that the picture of an Israeli air strike on Beirut had beenm________②by the photographer, Adnan Hajj. Smoke had been added, using Photoshop, to increase the scale and intensity of the destruction. Like an athlete failing adope[2]test, Hajj insisted he'd only been trying to clear dust from his image - by adding more? - but Reuters immediatelyw_________③the picture and announced that it would no longer accept work from him. This breach of agency rules was less dramatic than the occasion during the Iraq war when a staff photographer for the LA Times enhanced the power of a picture of a British soldier and Iraqi civilians by altering their positions. (2)While taking advantage of the latest technology, both instances are part of a tradition almost as old as that of photography itself.Some of Brady's Civil War work was actually done by Alexander Gardner who, in 1863, took a picture of a dead rebel sharpshooter at Gettysburg. It's a GREat photograph, well worth the effort of dragging the corpse 40 yards, propping its head on a knapsack (so that it faced the camera) and leaning a rifle (not the sharpshooter's, but one Gardner carried as a prop) against the barricade for dramatic effect.
Eight years earlier, in the Crimea, Roger Fenton photographed the cannonball-strewn[3]aftermath of the Charge of the Light Brigade. (3)The picture was an immediate success, underscoring the heroic sentiments of Tennyson's poem, even though it was not actually this valley that the Light Brigade had charged down.Not only that, but Fenton did two versions of the same scene, one in which the cannonballs lay as they were found; another - the one always reproduced - in which the cannonballs, according to Susan Sontag, had been more dramatically and abundantly 'scattered' by the photographer's assistants.
The first person to spot this was photographic historian Mark Haworth-Booth who pointed out the discrepancy[4] to John Szarkowski, curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Szarkowski looked long and hardb________④saying: 'You're right, the second picture has more balls.'
(4)In both these early examples, the raw material has been adjusted in such a way as to enhance a more general truth.This kind of thing went on throughout the 20th century and continues today as photographers exploit thepoignancy[5]of a child's death bynudging[6]cuddly[7]toys closer to a blood-stained hand.
A different kind of ethicalblemish[8]attaches to manipulating the picture after it's been taken. This was thep________⑤that elicited Milan Kundera's famous declaration in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting: '_____________________________(人们想成为未来主人的唯一理由就是要改变过去).They are fighting for access to the laboratories where photographs are retouched and biographies and histories rewritten.'
The difference, now, is that anyone with a computer has access to these laboratories. Photographs can be retouched with the press of a button, almost as soon as they are taken. (5)History can be changed as it happens, before it's even written.
NOTES:
[1]posterity n.子孙后代
[2]dope n.麻药,毒品;药剂
[3]strew v.撒播;散布;铺盖;点缀在
[4]discrepancy n.不一致;差异
[5]poignancy n.尖锐,沉痛,辛辣
[6]nudge v.推进;推动;用肘轻推
[7]cuddly adj.令人想拥抱的,惹人怜爱的
[8]blemish n.瑕疵,缺点
试一试:
1.根据首字母提示和译文,填入适当单词:
①There is no directs________for the quotation(这句话找不到直接出处)(名词)
②had beenm________by the photographer(经过摄影师处理了的)(过去分词)
③Reuters immediatelyw________the picture(路透社立即撤掉了照片)(动词)
④Szarkowski looked long and hardb________saying(沙尔柯夫斯基看了很长时间,然后说)
⑤This was thep________that elicited Milan Kundera's famous declaration in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting(这种做法使米兰-昆得拉在《笑忘录》中写道……)(名词)
参考答案:①source ②manipulated ③withdrew ④before ⑤practice
2.翻译划线部分英文:
参考答案:
(1)大多数认为,照片与绘画不同,它直接源于现实,因此作为证据是非常有力的。
(2)虽然这两起事件都利用了最新的技术,但照片造假却像摄影本身一样有着悠久的历史。
(3)照片大获成功,因为它突出了英国 诗 人丁尼生 诗 歌中的英雄主义情绪,虽然轻骑兵攻打的实际并非照片上的山谷。
(4)在这些早期的例子中,摄影师为加强照片印证事实的效果往往会对原材料进行调整。
(5)历史还没有被记录下来,它在发生时就已经被改变。
3.根据译文,写出句子:
参考译文: The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past(是不是您的翻译与原文相去甚远,这不奇怪,同一意思表达方式成千上万,只要您愿意尝试学习作者的用法,您就达到学习的目的了。)