Technology

From huge geese to flying cars, these photographs from a new exhibition at the Rijksmuseum reveal how we have been manipulating images for over a century

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“The largest ear of corn grown”, photographed by W.H. Martin and published by The North American Post Card Co. in 1908

Rijksmuseum

Rijksmuseum

Remember that image of the late Pope Francis from 2023, looking hip in a huge, white puffer jacket? The photo went viral before it emerged that it had been generated by AI tool Midjourney. Fake images and videos flood the internet these days, but a new exhibition explores how people have been manipulating photographs almost since the medium was invented.

Take this startling image of a huge ear of corn (above). It was taken – or perhaps created is a better word – by W. H. Martin in 1908 as part of a series of postcards depicting outlandishly sized produce or livestock.…