Photoshop Project: Option 1

I initially attempted to avoid the political (read: anti-Bush) route because that seemed to be the go-to for this project, but I ended up with that kind of commentary anyways. Perhaps our tendency to go towards political commentary with these types of assignments shows what kind of media and images we are inundated with on a regular basis. If these are our default images to manipulate, it would make sense that this is because these are the images we identify as most important or influential within our own lives.
For my photo manipulation, I eventually settled on the Washington Monument reflecting back an image of an oil drill in the pool on the National Mall. I chose this image because of its central and iconic status, and I mean central quite literally - everything in DC is centered around this structure, and the city sprawls out from the National Mall. By placing an oil drill as the reflection of such a central edifice, I hoped to suggest that oil is as central to our government policies right now as the monument is to the capital. I tried to reflect (no pun intended) the points made by Berger about the way in which we view images as both self-evident and creations. They are immediately present, and in that virtue lies photo manipulations' ability to be an effective mode of social commentary.
I am admittedly not the greatest photoshopper in the world (as shown by the fact that I couldn't get the gradient on the reflected skies to match no matter how hard I tried), but I hope that the interaction of the two images within one composite piece speaks louder than my photoshop skills. I think the success of a composite image isn't even necessarily reliant on 'good photoshopping,' so much as its ability to get the point across. The appropriateness of the way in which the two or more images are combined, I think, are more important than the skill with which they are combined. A monkey face crudely stuck on George W Bush's body can be more effective than some obscure but adroit photo manipulation. Furthermore, the effectiveness of such an image requires the image to be contextually situated; oftentimes, this involves taking a well known image and manipulating it in an unexpected way in order to make the viewer look twice. (E.g. All the takes on Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper'.) As Berger suggests, with new media, images become iconic not only by their own existence but through their interaction with other images and the different incarnations thereof. However, what /can/ be said for a good photo manipulation is the discussion it may bring about regarding the veracity of the image. A poor version of the Sarah Palin manipulation we saw in class may have generated a few laughs, but the fact that people may have even thought it was real brings up issues about how we view Palin herself.
My photoshop project certainly isn't going to make anyone thing that the Washington Monument is truly reflecting an offshore drill site, but perhaps it will bring to mind exactly what is the structure at the center of the Bush administration's consideration, and the implications of that.