"From Zero to One"

In the chapter "From Zero to One" Fred Ritchin explains that despite the loss of an image's truth value in an ocean of digital images, there is an opportunity for the image maker to evolve a new way of experiencing the world. In the example of the tourist who uses photography (or the act of taking a photograph) as a surrogate for actual experience, digital manipulation may free him from the usual tourist sites that have been photographed/experienced to the point of cliche. No longer will the tourist have to actually visit the "most photographed barn in America" or the Eiffel Tower. Digital manipulation can simulate those experiences without the tourist having to be present for those experiences. This usage of digital manipulation of tourist traps will allow the tourist to experience sites that are off the proverbial "beaten path." Tourist/photographers will now be more willing to explore, observe and capture more "idiosyncratic" places and objects, thus leading to a more enriched lived experience. This optimistic view of the manipulation possible in the digital age is somewhat tempered by Ritchin's belief that images should retain what journalistic and documentary quality that remains when we view images; although the semblance of truth in images is quickly disappearing in our society, that illusion of non-fictional image must be retained to prevent those in power to have the advantage of claiming a false truth or denying the validity of certain events like genocide.
Ritchin suggestion that there be a way of distinguishing the manipulated from the non manipulated images (meaning "modest" modifications in color, exposure, etc.) is not as easy a solution to implement into the wider culture. The problem is that there is an unwillingness to create a standard language of discriminating from manipulated to the non-manipulated from established media outlets. Without an agreed upon standard of interpreting media, and with a society that is media illiterate, the photograph, one of our "most effective reportorial media will be dissipated in the popular imagination." At the same time the potentials of the new digital technology will be "undercut." In the end, his view that the photograph should be seen as a visual "quotation" (not as the truth) seems valid to me. Photography should not lose its documentary quality but at the same time it should also be seen as an interpretation of an event, with the visual information in the image providing layers of meaning beyond that provided by the photographer or editor.