A picture says a thousand lies!

When looking at the two photographs, it's easy to see that there is a man in the first that doesn't appear on the second. The missing man's name was Leon Trotsky, and the picture was taken in Soviet Russia. When he was no longer a part of the communist party in power, the soviets removed him in the picture, to erase any ties he had with other party officials. This type of picture is harmful, especially knowing that the government could and would easily distort images, because Trotsky's reputation and image could be easily distorted and manipulated by the use of pictures. In the example above, the government could make it seem like they had no ties with this man and could argue that they never had. I picked this image because the use of power is quite frightening--knowing that the government was so manipulative! I also did a little report once in my world history class about how Hitler similarly manipulated photos to his benefit. For example, when he thought that those who were in power with him were traitors, he would secretly have them assassinated or exiled and would remove all traces of those individuals from photos. Also, he would use it in his governing abilities by either erasing evidence or creating unreal evidence in his favor by changing photos. The Nazi regime was very corrupt, and photos, manipulated creatively, were as dangerous as their other forms of violence.