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Explain how the ‘truth’ of photographic images has always been a contested idea. Cite one example from the ‘pre-digital’ era, and one from contemporary culture to illustrate your argument.
The images of the photographic in the pre-digital era were taken as the proof and evidence of reality. However, today this belief might not hold because of the technology that might aid the editing of the photographic to assume content and the background preferred by the user. At the pre-digital era, no such techniques were available and the possibility of an individual faking a photographic image was beyond the imaginations of the people (Joyce, 2012, p. 35). This made people believe that the photographic images were nothing but the truth on the ground. This belief was majorly the reason that the people were made to believe on the existence of fairies. People believe that the two photographic images taken by the two girls, Iris and Alice, were the truth and were evidence of existence of before-then, mythical and tale fairies. Nevertheless, the ambiguous nature of the believed existence of fairies and the fact that it was only the two girls who had the chance to interact and photograph the fairies prompted the questions on the authenticity of the images (Alex, 2014, p. 50).
There has been a contest to express and defend the truth of photographic images. In the article, Borderland Borms: Arthur Conan Doyle, Albion Daughters, and the politics of the Cottingley Fairies, Conan Doyle believes that the images were true and goes out of his to visit the two girls at the Cottingley to cement his believe of the authenticity of the photographs. All his efforts were fuelled by the people doubting the existence of the fairies yet the photographs showed the two girls playing and having fun with fairies. The two girls were of tender age and has not mastered the art of photography and this made people like Conan Doyle believe that the two girls could not have forged the photographs. This resulted to him looking for the films of the two photographs to ascertain that they were not tampered and they contained what was on the images. Upon proving that the films were the exact with no signs of forgery, he went fourth to invite his colleague, Edward L. Gardner who helped him to verify the photographs as genuine. He then went further to publish a book, The Coming of the Fairies, using the photographs to discuss the reality of fairies existence.
The contest would not end when Conan met Gardner whom he describes as the most efficient collaborator, to whom all credit is due. Conan learnt that Gardner had the interest of seeking the authenticity of the photographs. Gardner had sent the original negatives to the photographic experts for scrutiny and at least one experienced photographer had formed a favorable conclusion as to the genuineness of the pictures. This experienced photographer is described as Snelling who owned his studio business. Conan also consulted the experts from the Kodak Company and urged them to prove the genuineness of the photographs and they could not find any evidence of faked work although they could not prepare a written guarantee of the authenticity (Alex, 2014, p. 55). Other photographers had refused to take the photographs seriously claiming that the background consisted of theatrical properties and others alluding to the elaborate Parisian coiffure of the little ladies and thus the pictures were worthless fake (Alex, 2014, p. 50). This shows the heated contest that existed in the pre-digital era concerning the truth of the photographic images.
Conan and Gardner were out to verify the truthfulness of the photographic images that they believed were genuine. Thus, Gardner was required to visit the Carpenters family to dig out more evidence concerning the genuineness of the photographs. They were quite prepared to find that a personal investigation would disclose some evidence of falsity (Alex, 2014, p. 56). When Gardner arrived at the Carpenter’s house, he was taken to the site of the photographs, a little valley behind the house. He identified the salient features that were captured in the two photographs. He also obtained the exact information concerning the camera that was used and the setting up of the profile, and the dates of the two photographs. The girls also explained the colors that had been lost because of the black and white production. Gardner also took time to interview Mr. Carpenter and the information he received was above board and had information he would like to hear concerning the genuineness of the photographs. Gardner left Cottingley quite convinced of the genuineness of the photographs. He later communicated his findings to Conan Doyle through a letter and it was the same convincing. All this was done to dispel further doubts that the pictures could have been faked. This was all in effort to contest and defend the truthfulness of photographic images.
The contest of the truthfulness is also witnessed in the family where the Mr and Mrs Wright were also amazed by the pictures and could not trust whether the photographs were genuine or not. To contest this they questioned the girls how they could have faked the photographs, nevertheless, the girls held to their story that they often met and played with the fairies. A lot goes on in a bid to establish whether they could trust the photographic images to offer true information or not. Conan Doyle also organized a further photo session for the girls and provided his marked films to ensure that the girls do not exchange or interfere with them. The exercise was a success and the girls were able to produce the photographs with fairies and description of minutiae surrounding contained in the photographs. This affirmed to the believers of the truth in photographic images that their belief was based on something solid and they would gain a solid advantage in the contest of genuineness (Alex, 2014, p. 56). This also amused the photographers who had questioned the previous pictures. The factor that enhanced all these doubts and disbelief was concerning whether the photographic images could be relied upon to offer true information or they were subject to faking or not was because there was little knowledge photography at the pre-digital era.
The digital era has been characterized by photographic editing. In photographic editing, the photographs from the digital cameras are put into the computers and changes introduced as is desired by the user. Backgrounds can be changed and new features included to decorate the pictures (Joyce, 2012, p. 35) . The films are also treated with new technologies to introduce changes to the pictures contained. This technology makes digital photographs hide the truth and thus cannot be relied upon to provide truth or evidence of what happened during the capture and what is shown on the current image. Thus cannot be used as record to aid memory.
In the pre-digital era, photographic images were culturally used to store information. Vertov in Berger, in his film, man with a movie camera, was to refer to himself as an eye. A mechanical eye, a machine that will show you the world only the way he will see it. Who free himself for today and forever from human immobility, he was in constant movement, free from the boundaries of time and space, he coordinates any and all points of the universe in where he want them to be . His way leads toward the creation of a fresh perception of the world. And he explained in a new way the world unknown to us (Vertov, 1972, 10. In this excerpt, it shows that photographic images were seen to portray the world only in the he would see it. This means that the content would not change with time nor would it be altered with time. The images free themselves with today and immobility meaning that their state would remain static with no changes. The images were free from boundaries of time and space. The images were also thought to coordinate all the parts of the universe to one image meaning everything from the universe would be contained in the images. This argument puts more weight to the perception of the truthfulness that was attached to photographic images in the pre-digital era. The photographic images were true reflection of the universe (Scmelling and James, 2002).
Although there might have been faking of the photographic images in the two photographic images in the two girls case, no information was available on how this could have been achieved. If fairies were mythical and unrealistic objects, then the pictures were literally faked. Nevertheless, in the pre-digital era there was no technique to change the images in a photograph. This gives reason why there was a huge debate and conviction that the girls could have literally seen and interacted with the fairies for them to have their images in the negatives (Alex, 2014, p. 58).
The ‘truth’ of photographic images has always been a fact in the pre-digital era. This made it possible for people to trust photographical images as records and the representation of the reality. However, the question about the existence of fairies made people start doubting the credibility of the truth of photographic images. Because the people thought of fairies as only imaginary objects only used in folk tales, the capturing of the fairies in the photographic images made people have a question of whether these images really represented the truth. These images elicited the contest on the ‘truth’ of photographic images. Because fairies did not exist in reality, then the photographs were faked and information added to them. Because Conan Doyle and Gardner, had no evidence to link the girls with faking of the photographs and because there were no techniques available to girls to alter the pictures, the fairies existed and the photographic images only contained the truth (Alex, 2014, p. 57). This was the contest.
What does the design and use of a typeface tell us about an era? Cite two examples, produced at least eighty years apart, and pay particular attention to the relationships between technologies and visual forms.
Typeface has developed since time immemorial to the current digital typeface where typeface exists in many different forms, designs, and applicability. The difference in the design over the ages has been facilitated by the technology available. At early years of development, typeface was being practiced on stones, later woods until today when it is done on the computers and has several software to aid in the typeface making. The activities like the need for advertising has also been a major factor in the typeface development to cope with the need to infectively relay the advertising information. A typeface is composed of either one or more fonts having glyphs with same design characteristics. These characteristics might include the style, width, condensation, italicization, and slant among others. There are thousands of typefaces present today and new ones continue to be developed (Muller, 2002, p. 3). Typeface development started from the analog era to the current digital era.
The design and use of a typeface speaks volume about the activities happening at the type of development. The earlier typefaces were developed during the partition and marking of boarders and thus were used for map-making; others were used for astrology while others were even used for mathematics. This is because they were meant to facilitate the carrying out of activities effectively. The materials on which designs were made also play an important role in the explanation of the activities that were happening and possibly why the typefaces were developed. This essay analyses the history of the development of typefaces and identifies the eras in which each typeface design was popular and when it was developed and possibly why it could have been developed (Johnson, 1998, p. 52).
Early typefaces were cast in alloys of lead by the then the typeface developers. Although there is no record of the activities that the foundries used to undertake, it can be postulated that they dealt with metal and possibly they might have been blacksmiths. The typefaces have no recorded use but they might have been used to indicate or to distinguish the metal work that has been completed by the foundries. These typefaces were commonly related to the 15th century around 1450s (Johnson, 1998, p. 52). Metals, lead alloy might have been the most common material at that time that was easier to engrave types into.
Nevertheless, the lead alloys were used for casting the smaller fonts. When there was need to cut larger fonts as the used of typefaces became sophisticated during the same era, wood served as material for large fonts during the 19th century that became to be known as the wood type. This was mainly used for advertising as sign posts that could relay information effectively to a large number of people without the distortion of information. At this point in time, there no techniques of drawing or printing these fonts on other materials like steel and thus wood remained the best choice. About this era, we can deduce that wood was an important cultural factor and formed an aspect of economic activity. The use of this design of typeface shows that there was important information that was to be disseminated to the public maybe like trade (Johnson, 1998, p. 52). The other earliest design of typeface was known as the continuous casting. In this type, the mechanization of typesetting made it possible to automate casting of fonts as lines of types with the required sizes and length.
The above describe designs of typeface were used in the analogue era, before the onset of the digital era, there was a duration of transition that saw some remarkable changes in this industry. During the transition period that happened between 1950 and 1990s, the mechanical typesetting and manual typesetting were replaced by phototypesetting. This technology used images of individual glyphs that were of high resolution on a film strip. A high intensity light was shone on the photographic film and the desired letters were focused on a light sensitive paper for typesetting at a specific size and position. In this era, the use of typeset letters had increased due to increased human interaction through trade, politics, and education. The major use of typeface during this era was thus for exchange of ideas. Because economic and commercial activities had also diversified, the typeface development had also advanced because of the need to advertise commercial activities (Carter and Meggs, 2002), p. 43). This era marked the culmination of the analog typeface technology and ushered in the modern digital typeface that is more associated to the computers and the drastic use of the mobile phones and other smaller communication devices that necessitates sophistication of the communication practice to enable efficient sharing of ideas.
The design and the use of typeface also give us information about technological development of a certain era. At the analog era described above, very little technology was available and the media for dissemination of information was restricted to metals and woods an lately to roughly prepared templates. In the modern digital era, the media has become up-to-date and enhances very fast typing of information at most desirable font and the fonts can be changed like from times new romans to times new romans italic within the same text. The fonts can also changes from form 12 to 14 within the same text. This is enhanced by the need to produce high quality works that catches the eyes of the intended groups like the commercial adverts to the invitation cards and business cards. This has all been made easy by the use of computer. The need to write big volumes of information in the same document also necessitated the development of typeface in the digital era (Carter and Meggs, 2002), p. 43). The need to reproduce several copies and save them for records and future use is also a major characteristic of sophistication of the typeface development in the current era.
The digital era took the type foundries by surprise. This was because of the efficiency at which the computers facilitated the comparison by offering many typefaces and software meant to develop new typefaces. The images of each character are stored in form of bitmaps in bitmap font and through mathematical description of lines and graphs in vector fonts. Nevertheless, the bitmap usage has stopped nowadays. The digital typefaces were mainly developed and are continually being developed to facilitate learning. The dominant visual form is the computer screens in the form of CRT and TFT monitors although hardcopies are printed once the font is finalized and ascertained that it is the needed one. he digital typeface has many designs that are in use and they are adopted from the existed analog designs and further developed ones. The designs usage varies from place to place and from a person to person. A particular design is preferred for a certain duration o time, for a particular purpose, and for a certain group of people. For example, in the digital era, the Time News Roman, font size 12 and double space is the conventionally preferred typeface and font for all academicals works globally. Thus, Time New Roman signifies the digital era as an era with widespread academicals work (Graham, 2002, p. 25). The use of this work, for academicals work, tells us that the digital era, unlike the analog era where typefaces were used for petty record keeping, there is widespread academic activities. \
For the purpose of the comparing two examples, we take the wood type for analog and times New Roman digital typeface to illustrate the radical changes that has occurred between the 19th century and the 21st century in the typeface development. In the wood type, the letters and the fonts were engraved in the woods and they were in large sizes. The visual forms were just letters on the wood and they carried little information. The letters were inscribed into the woods using sharp objects. On the other hand, the Times new roman is more technical and is best laid out in the computers, the letters are simple and well clear for easy reading. They also change in sizes of font although they represent the same typeface. The technology is widespread and developed and it ranges from the computer, to all other communication devices like the ipads, handsets, tablets, among others. There are also other printers that are programmed to type and print in this typeface. The visual forms of this design of typeface is normally computer screen displays like TFT and CRT as well as other displays like LED and LCD dot matrix display used in other forms of communication devices other than computers (Graham, 2002, p. 25).
As it has been seen, typeface design and use has developed with time from the analog to digital era. The two most conspicuous eras of typeface are the digital and the analog. The design and the use of the typeset applied by type foundries has a lot of information attached to it concerning the era it was used or the era of its inception. Although little information is documented about the eras of typeset, the available information can be used to deduce information about the activities of that era. For instance, the first typeface that was cast on lead alloy suggest that metal work was very common t that time and it might have originated from those areas that practiced the metal work. Similarly, the typeface design that was engraved on wood suggests the economic activity of the place of origin. These two also suggest that those era there was little technical knowhow. On the other hand, digital design of typeface also gives idea of the technology during this era (Graham, 2002, p. 25). Thus, design and use of typeface speaks volume of an era.

References
Alex, Owen (2014) “Borderland Borms: Arthur Conan Doyle, Albion Daughters, and the politics of the Cottingley Fairies. London: Oxford University Press.
Berger, vertov (1977) “ ways of seeing”. London: Penguins Books Limited. Print.
Joyce, Goggin (2012) “the status of the photographic image in post media cultural production”. Amsterdam: Univerity of Amsterdam. Pg 1-55
Scmelling, Michael, and James Holloway (2002) “ shut up truth: Photographs of Holloway” . Atlanta: J&L Books, Inc.
“digital manipulation: Photo.” Slavery The Ultimate Roadmap. http://digitalslavery.wordpress.com/2009/manipulation -photos/ (accessed September 20, 2014
Muller, Lars (2002) Helvetica: Homeage to a typeface. Baden: Lars Muller.
Johnson, Luke (1998) “The development of typesetting an fonts.”. London: Prentice Hall.
Graham, Lisa (2002).‘basics of design: layout and typography. New York: Delmar
Carter, Day, and Meggs, John (2002) Typography design: Form and Communication. Third Edition. Hoboken. John Wiley and Sons.