Hosni Mubarak left red faced over doctored red carpet photo
Embarrassment as Egyptian paper alters image to put president at head of procession
Al-Ahram’s Photoshopped image of President Hosni Mubarak and other leaders at the Middle East peace talks. Photograph: Al-Ahram
There are those who lead and those who follow, and the Egyptian
newspaper Al-Ahram clearly feels that President Hosni Mubarak fits into
the former category.When he was pictured with the Israeli and
Palestinian leaders, Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, trailing
behind Barack Obama on the red carpet at the White House recently, it
was nothing Photoshop could not fix. So, on Tuesday, the state-run daily
Al-Ahram published the photo, taken at the launch of the latest Middle East peace talks – but with Mubarak switched to the front of the procession.
The original photograph of the five leaders. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Related posts
Notes on Teaching August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle
This morning I awoke to YouTube’s live footage of crowds circling a mosque in Mecca. For months I’ve been looking at my own simulated crowds from a similar angle and I was a bit disoriented.
That hails back to Byzantine art. Often the feet of figures in art were placed in order to show a hierarchy. (See Justinian mosaic here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_art#The_Age_of_Justinian) Note how the emperor’s feet (front, center) are unfettered.
If perception is reality, then the photo alteration addresses a power struggle we can’t deny.