The Camera Never Lies...

They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum. So said Tallulah Bankhead, the renowned beauty and early film star. And, if that's how she felt, heaven help the rest of us.

More observant readers among you might have noticed that my picture has changed from a simple image representing a female to a real-life photograph. After some gentle badgering from the boss, I've finally succumbed to having my image captured digitally.

Similar to the Hoover effect, where a proprietary name of a make of vacuum cleaner has become a verb, to Photoshop now describes the digital enhancement of an image using Adobe Photoshop software, usually to produce a misleading impression of the photograph's subject. This has led to the invention of the term fauxtography, a blend of 'faux' and 'photography', referring to manipulated images published by photojournalists. There's yet more jiggery-pokery to come. Digital dieting, a wonderful and welcome artistic effect, is a technique used to seemingly shed pounds from an image.

You're probably familiar with the term rubbernecker, which can describe a driver who can't resist craning their neck around in order to gawk at an accident as they pass. Taking this behaviour a step further, a digi-necker will scrabble around in the car for a camera or mobile phone, so that they can record the wreckage on film. Nice.