Fake photographs of Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell

demonstrations by Adriana Peliano.




How to distinguish fact from version and information from manipulation? This is a good example of how people believe what they want to see, often strengthening prejudices and ignorance. This photomontage and digital manipulation has a disturbing and flighty presence on  internet and is quoted in contexts where we expect more critical sense and discernment.

I present here the original photos of Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell taken by him which were the basis for the fake montage. After disclosing the compared images on facebook I received information that the image was created by an artist who created a series of digital manipulations to reflect on the question of the simulacrum and the movement of images on the internet. It was a successful experiment? Unfortunately.


 Como distinguir o fato da versão? A informação da manipulação? Esse é um bom exemplo de como como as pessoas acreditam no que querem ver, muitas vezes autorizando preconceitos e diplomando ignorâncias. Essa montagem tem vida ampla na internet e é citada em contextos onde esperamos mais senso crítico e discernimento. Mostro aqui as fotos originais de Lewis Carroll e Alice Liddell tiradas por ele que serviram de base para a montagem.

Depois de divulgar as imagem no facebook recebi a informação de que a imagem foi criada por um artista que criou uma série de manipulações digitais para refletir sobre a questão do simulacro e a circulação das imagens na internet. Foi um experimento bem sucedido? Lamentável.


 

This is another photomontage circulating on the internet and misinformed conversations. It was created on photos of Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll taken by him, and a third photo of a father with his daughter, an image that serves as the basis for the meeting of the supposed couple. The evidence speaks for itself.

 Essa é mais uma montagem fotográfica que circula na internet e em conversas mal informadas. Ela foi criada sobre fotos de Alice Liddell e Lewis Carroll tiradas por ele, além de uma terceira foto de um pai com a filha, imagem que serve de base para o encontro do suposto casal. As evidências falam por si.

comments on facebook:

"I think it is worthwhile to mention that the picture in the middle was not intended to be a hoax but is the digital collage of artist David O'Kane who has a whole series of fictional self-portraits made up of a composite of his own and Carroll's face. The artist's agenda was to problematize the workings of simulation and simulacra, and how meanings can be deformed as they are circulated over the internet. His artistic experiment alas succeeded too well..."

"Very interesting! Good topic to think about. I'm not sure what means to succeed well in this case. Make thousands believe or few understand that it was a semiotic strategy?"

"When I googled "David O'Kane" and "Lewis Carroll" the image appeared once. When I googled the picture on Google images it apeared about 20,800,000 results in 0.45 seconds! Very sad experiment indeed."

Carrol's toys

'Tim', The Dodgson's family doll, at Croft, 1858

"Many years later Carroll kept stores of toys and games and puzzles in his rooms and brought them out to play with his visitors, he demonstrated the magic of numbers in mathematics; he could conjure make various animals with a folded handkerchief, pass a halfpenny though a sixpenny hole, he invented word games and picture riddles and ways of doing sums which most children found droll and absorbing (though some were bored). "

MARINA WARNER

Nonsense is Rebellion: The Childsplay of Lewis Carroll.

Marina Warner, Roger Taylor and Michael Bakewell, LEWIS CARROLL. British Council.

catalog of an exhibition.

Interview with Marina Warner about Alice HERE

3 little horses: Lewis Carroll photographs

Lewis Carroll is known as a photographer mainly for the photos of little girls, however his work in photography is much broader. Here we see a sequence of pictures of boys and their toy horses. The horses represents an image of masculinity and manhood that the animals suggest, and Carroll plays with this idea.

Found HERE

Victorian Little Red Riding Hoods

Little Red Riding Hood is perhaps the most retold fairy tale of all time. From oral tradition before Perrault in the XVIIth century to the audacious versions of Angela Carter in the XXth century, we can find a Little Red Riding Hood on each forest.

Here we see two interpretations of the story by Victorian photographers. Lewis Carroll used to dress their models in a game of make-believe. As Alice Liddell became the heroine of the stories of Alice, Agnes Grace became the protagonist of his version of Little Red Riding Hood. Carroll photographed LRRH in many occasions.

Lewis Carroll, Agnes Grace Held as Little Red Riding Hood, 1857

Kenneth Rougeau

Henry Peach Robinson

All images by Henry Peach Robinson

, Little Red Riding Hood, 1858

Lewis Carroll and photography

"A man of many talents, Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was a distinguished Professor of Mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford, and a successful author of children's books. Long before he published the famous Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Carroll was a dedicated and prolific photographer, creating approximately 3,000 images during his twenty-five years of photographic activity. He is mostly remembered for his exceptional photographs of children, which include portraits of Alice Liddell, the inspiration behind his classic book. Carroll also used to compile his photographs into albums and send them to major cultural figures in Victorian society, in hopes that they might want similar portraits of themselves or their children. His photographs thus include sitters such as the family of the Pre-Raphaelite painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, among others. His work also features portraits of family members and close friends as well as landscapes and still lifes, demonstrating the remarkable extent and complexity of Carroll's photographic art. His work has become embedded deeply in modern culture, influencing many artists. His photographs have seen a recent resurgence in popularity, demonstrating their importance to the history of photography. Carroll is now considered one of the greatest Victorian photographers." 

Amazon

Buy it HERE