The Market Square in Cambridge at 10:45 am on Sunday, and it is heaving with people. Except you can’t see them. I got an app for the phone that does long exposure photography, longer than the phone can do natively. And an unexpected feature is that it wipes away anything moving.
If you look closely there’s a wisp of a figure going into a shop. And of course the people under the awning in the cafe are visible because they are not moving. But the crowds are airbrushed out by the app.
Propaganda
I have or had a book entitled Propaganda. One photo has stayed with me. There are two versions of the photo of Stalin and a man standing next to him. And then in the later version the man is not there. He has fallen from favour and was taken out in the darkroom on the orders of Stalin.
But that’s not the whole story. In an even earlier version we see that the man was not there in the first place. So first he was not there, then he was pasted in, and then taken out. Or perhaps they reverted to the original photo.
Let’s see what AI can do.
AI: Make a photo of Stalin standing in a greatcoat by the Neva River looking to the camera. Beside him another man also in a greatcoat, also looking to the camera. He is a ghostly figure half there and half not there.
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