 EditorialFILTER #8: Photography Post-Truth With Donald Trump’s persistent claim that there were far more people present at his 2016 presidential inauguration than at Barack Obama’s ceremony four years earlier – despite photographs from both events clearly showing otherwise – an era marked by fake news began. In the same year, the Oxford Dictionaries named ‘post-truth’ their Word of the Year, defined as describing situations where ‘objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. During the COVID-19 pandemic, social-media posts exploded with conspiracy content; photos were shared out of context, manipulated and recirculated to support particular narratives. The wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip have reminded us that press and war photography can serve propaganda purposes – that various groups have a vested interest in promoting or suppressing certain images to influence public opinion about the conflicts. Simultaneously, we are witnessing a paradigm shift in photography: with the broad proliferation of photorealistic AI-generated images – whose creation is entirely detached from the assumption that a photograph depicts ‘what has been’ – the change is happening so fast that neither users, developers nor policymakers can keep up. As a result, both legislation and ethical guidelines are lagging behind. Content: Editorial Lewis Koch Hostile takeover, 11.08.16 (2016) (portfolio) Lewis Bush Distrust and Verify: Visual Journalism, Technology and the Crisis of Trust (article) Joan Fontcuberta What Darwin Missed (2024) (portfolio) Rolf Sachsse Perception, Propaganda and Photography: Notes on the image policy of the National Socialist state (article) Tina Enghoff Displaced (2018–2021) (portfolio) Laura Rautjoki & AI The Image of a Woman (2023–2024) (portfolio) Oscar Vindel Schönström The Witness on the Wall (article) Andreas Koch Windows (2007–2024) (portfolio) Camilla Kragelund AI is not photography. (Interview with Boris Eldagsen) Astrid Kruse Jensen Places Beyond Places (2024–2025) (portfolio) Kerstin Hamilton The Choreography of Science (article) Andréas Lang A Phantom Geography: Cameroon and Congo (2011–2024) (portfolio)
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