A couple, visiting Texas for the first time, stopped for gas at a station in West Texas.  At the next pump over, a pickup and trailer full of livestock pulled in and the driver hopped out.

With some encouragement from her husband, the wife approached. “Excuse me, sir.  Are you a real cowboy?”  “I guess so, ma’am,” he replied.

“I was wondering why you all wear such unusual clothing.”

“Well, ma’am….I wear this hat because it keeps the sun out of my eyes and the rain off my neck.  The high crown keeps my head cool and I can use it to scoop water. I wear this kerchief to wipe away perspiration and to protect my breathing when it gets dusty. These chaps protect my legs from underbrush and thorns.”

“And I wear these tennis shoes so that people don’t think I’m a truck driver.”

For this week’s assignment, I present the truck drivers of the JA Ranch:

 

The purpose of this assignment was to learn some specific Photoshop skills to use in our production of the final projects, including balancing size, tinting, and improving images.  I used a color swatch from the faded blue of Bill’s front pocket (the original photo is in color) to tint all three photographs. Jesse’s photo is a little wider, because I wanted to include a bit of the camp kitchen background. The height of the banner image above is similar to the width of the photos below. When I construct the final project, I’ll see how things balance out on the page.

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This project raised an ethical question for me, particularly when I considered going in the opposite direction and colorizing Jesse’s picture: how far should one go to clarify a photograph, or make it more attractive for publication? I’ve seen some fantastic colorized images of Civil War photographs.  The colorizers use a lot of interesting techniques to get the color as close to the original as possible; to many viewers, the result makes the subjects seem more real.  Yet, journalism ethics caution against editing. This site has 58 examples of Photshop “enhancements” that led to varying degrees of misleading reporting.

Does an altered photograph reveal more “truth” about someone’s appearance, or is it merely compilation of assumptions built into the software’s algorithm? Does the color of his overalls matter? His hat? What shade of skin color should I use for Jesse, who, according to unverified family lore is one-quarter Native American?

I’m not sure I will even attempt to erase the crease in Jesse’s photograph.  It’s a part of the history of the artifact. Conversion of Bill’s photograph to black and white, and then tinting it the color of his faded denims is an artistic expression that will help to unify the design of the atlas and make it more pleasing to view.  If it gets copied and used in other places, without explanation, how might those alterations be misleading?

Now that I’ve expressed such high-minded ideals, here’s my new Facebook cover photo.  Photoshop is fun, and that’s okay for some uses.

 

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Elsewhere: I commented (twice) on Jefferson’s thoughts on academic writing vs. the popular history market.  Joshua posted some interesting maps using open-access software to demonstrate the sorts of questions that can arise from just a few lines of data. It suggests to me we’re at a cartographic tipping point for historical analysis.