Off with the Donkey’s Head!

Don’t worry, I don’t mean I real donkey’s head, just the one in the photograph on the left. I came across this recently when cataloguing the Co-operative Press photographs we hold in the Archive. In the photograph, it can clearly be seen that the head of the baby donkey has been completely ‘painted out’, the poor thing. Sadistic intent is not suspected (I don’t think!), it is just a great example of pre-Photoshop, Photoshopping in action.

For whatever reason, the shot of the two donkeys didn’t fit the bill, and simply cropping to show the one donkey was a problem as the little donkey’s head overlapped the adult donkey’s rear, and so it had to be ‘painted out’. With our own eyes we can see this, but proof is found on the rear of the print (image 2, below) where the instruction is given to “paint out the baby donkey’s head’.

One of many examples in the collection, albeit a rather extreme one, it brilliantly illustrates that all was perhaps not what it seemed in photographs well before digital manipulation ensured that any photograph depicting something extreme/unusual is viewed with a degree of skepticism.

Another image in the collection featuring a man operating a moulding machine in a bakery is equally bizarre. We can only presume that the man operating the machine was somewhat ‘peculiar’ looking as the Press Office have chosen to completely paint out his face and replace him with cartoon-like features which make him look like some kind of evil master-criminal! Poor man.

Published On: July 12, 2012

Written By: Simon

Filed Under: Blog Category