553
Volunteer, c. 1871, appears to show Rejlander twice in
the same scene at the same moment—a trick that would
come into a certain international vogue in the 1890s,
notably in an image of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec pos-
ing as both artist and model.
In the political realm, photomontage techniques were
used in the 1860s in Italy to show the exiled Queen of
Naples in compromising positions with contemporary
religious leaders, and to place the head of Abraham
Lincoln onto a variety of fi gures in various settings
(Mitchell, 1992, 204–209). Along with the increasingly
sophisticated use of such techniques there developed
growing suspicion about photographic evidence.
Thomas Hardy 1885 novel, A Laodicean, featured
a plot device whereby a photographic portrait of the
story’s hero was libelously manipulated in order to show
him in a state of intoxication (Henisch and Henisch,
1984, 313). In 1894, British jurist Ernest Arthur Jelf
used a constructed photograph in which former Prime
Minister William Gladstone appeared to stand at the
door of a London Pub to illustrate the “worthlessness”
of photographic evidence (Tucker, 1987, 378–9).
Similarly, the theme of entertaining but potentially
misleading “Photographic Lies” was amply illustrated
in an 1898 London magazine article with several “faked
photographs,” including one entitled, “Showing how
a man can be in two places at once” (“Photographic
Lies,” 1898, 262).
At the same time, accusations of fakery were being
leveled at photographers who manipulated their prints
for purely artistic effect, prompting Eduard Steichen’s
sarcastic response in the fi rst number of Camera Work.
Addressing himself to “Ye Fakers,” Steichen dismissed
criticism that artistically manipulated prints were
“faked” and argued that “faking” was present “in the
very beginning” of the photographic process, the ex-
posure itself. If all photographs were “fake from start
to fi nish,” then what mattered to Steichen was achiev-
ing authentic expression, not preserving the inherent
truthfulness of the unmanipulated photograph, which
for him, as for others of his day, was but a myth.
Stephen Petersen
See also: Brewster, Sir David; Photomontage and
Collage; Pictorialism; Spirit, Ghost, and Psychic
Photography; and Talbot, William Henry Fox.Further Reading
Brugioni, Dino A., Photo Fakery: The History and Techniques of
Photographic Deception and Manipulation, Dulles, Virginia:
Brassey’s, 1999.
Charleswoth, Michael, “Fox Talbot and the ‘White Mythology’
of Photography” in Word and Image, vol. 11, no. 3, July-
September 1995, 207–215.
Chéroux, Clément, “Ghost Dialectics: Spirit Photography in
Entertainment and Belief,” in Clément Chéroux et al., The
Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 2005, 45–55.
Henisch, Heinz K. and Bridget A. Henisch, The Photographic
Experience, 1839–1914: Images and Attitudes. University
Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984.
Leja, Michael, Looking Askance: Skepticism in American Art
from Eakins to Duchamp, Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2004.
Mitchell, William J., The Reconfi gured Eye: Visual Truth in a
Post-Photographic Era, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT
Press, 1992.
“Photographic Lies: Proving the Uselessness of the Camera
as a Witness,” in The Harmsworth Magazine, vol. 1, 1898,
259–264.
Porta, John Baptista (Giambattista della Porta), Natural Magick,
facsimile of 1658 London edition, New York: Basic Books,
1957.
Steichen, Eduard J., “Ye Fakers” in Camera Work, no. 1, Janu-
ary 1903, 107.
Tucker, Jennifer, “Photography as Witness, Detective, and Impos-
ter: Visual Representation in Victorian Science” in VictorianMumler, William H.. Untitled Portrait. Unidentifi ed woman
seated with arms of a “spirit” over her head.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles © The J. Paul Getty
Museum.