If alive today, there’s a good chance Mona Lisa would be using Instagram, and she may even have looked like this. The use of photo manipulation in this sense provides an entertaining way to see how historical figures from the past might look if they were around today. However, not every use of the technique has received such praise and positive feedback.
Instagram is already considered a place where people post their best shots, and some might even say, fake shots. In addition, Instagram is also a place that’s had to take a more proactive approach against the spread of fake news in recent years. However, one particular Instagram user has now attracted wide and positive attention for their intentionally fake and doctored images.
The royalty_now_ Instagram account is headed up by graphic designer and self-proclaimed history enthusiast, Becca Saladin. While there’s no pictures of Saladin on this Instagram feed, what you will find is a varied selection of historical figures along with photos that have been manipulated to provide a glimpse at what they might look like in the modern era. The account first started up back in February of 2019 and in addition to building up over 40,000 followers since then, it has also built up quite the collection of people. Besides Mona Lisa, you’ll also find familiar faces from British and French royalty, the Tudors, as well as famous faces from U.S. history, and even classic Hollywood stars.
The Good And The Bad Of Photo Manipulation
Although Saladin has received wide praise for the work done here, the issue of photo manipulation has come under increased scrutiny lately, and especially as technologies have made it harder to decipher an original from a doctored image. In these Instagram images, Saladin is taking existing photos, paintings, and sculptures of people and using techniques to manipulate the images to present an image that’s more in line with the look of the historical person. However, in the land of deepfakes, others have been using extremely advanced photo manipulation techniques to transplant one person’s face until the body of someone else. As an example of just how powerful these techniques have gotten, a company recently claimed its photo manipulation techniques are so advanced they could use an image of you without having to gain consent first (but the company notes that this is not the reason for the technology's existence).
While in some cases, these advanced techniques can be used to create entertaining content, such as this Home Alone deepfake that replaces Macaulay Culkin with Sylvester Stallone, in other cases the use has raised real concerns about the validity of the technology. Concerns that have even prompted services including Facebook to announce a crackdown on the use of deepfakes where the social media giant will now remove images that have been manipulated to a sophisticated level. Although Facebook owns Instagram, it has yet to introduce (not intentionally anyway) a similar feature to the image-sharing platform. However, even Facebook had ported its manipulation ban over to Instagram, it is unlikely to cover Saladin’s body of work as Facebook did also announce a number of caveats to the photo manipulation ban, including parody and satire.
Source: Royalty Now / Instagram