Faking It at The Met

A new photographic exhibit opened at The Met this week with extraordinary examples of manipulated photographs made well before the age of digital technology. We thought changing photographs of models and actors in magazines to look thinner and younger was a relatively new trend, but this exhibition shows that altering photographs has been around as long as the medium itself.

Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before The Age Of Photoshop includes around 200 images taken between the 1840s and 199os.  Subjects include art, politics and entertainment with the exhibition divided by section. “Politics and Persuasion” shows photographs manipulated for political gain, “Novelties and Amusements” brings together professional and amateur photographs taken intended to astonish and our favorite,”Pictures and Print” displays images in newspapers, magazines and advertising where the subjects were altered to portray a certain image.

The final section presents photographs by Yves Klein, John Baldessari, Duane Michals, Jerry Uelsmann, and…