For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle, Kodak Three Point Reflection Giude, © 1968 Eastman Kodak Company, 1968 (Meiko laughing) Vancouver, B.C., April 6, 2005

You have probably seen this laughing woman with the yellow turban before. If it was not her, then a photo showing someone like her. This is not a portrait, but an exchangeable photo shoot for advertising. The woman is posing for the camera, and her laugh and her happiness are intended to help to sell something. The black background can be exchanged for something else. Center left, there is the Kodak color strip, which has to be consulted whenever the image is used so as to ensure the right color tones. Christopher Williams uses photos taken by other photographers and shows how pictures are made, what the conditions of their production are, and that they are always manipulated, whether in advertising, industry, or fashion. The photo is just raw material. Look at this woman a bit more closely. You can see a small mole, some skin impurities, slightly irregular teeth, and small wrinkles, but all of these will removed to produce spotless beauty when the picture is used in advertising. Christopher Williams not only selected this photo by an advertising photographer; he also gives it a title that tells us exactly what the issue is. The title names the type of Kodak film that was used, then the working title that the original photographer used to name the print, “Meiko laughing,” and then the place where the picture was taken, Vancouver; next the date when the picture was taken, and finally the date on which Williams made the photo into a work of art. All of these decisions come together in this one motif. Nothing is left to chance, and everything fits in with the commercial production of images that shapes our everyday lives. And although we do know enough about manipulated images, we still cannot easily resist their seductive aesthetics.