Hosea’s Mug Shots

Ever look at the mug shots in the post office? Now you can buy a book of them. Mug shots as art.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

That’s partly because a lot of the pictures we see would take at least a couple thousand words to explain and every picture has a story — sometimes a seedy story. And by using an airbrush or Photoshop, the story can be manipulated to tell a different story.

Take the early-20th-century Soviet Union. After Leon Trotsky was excommunicated from the party, Stalin went through old political pictures and had him airbrushed out of any images where he appeared with Lenin and other Communist apparatchiks.

Or just glance down at the magazine rack at your grocery store — things are definitely not what they seem. After being released from prison in 2005, Martha Stewart made the cover of Newsweek carrying the caption, “She’s thinner, wealthier and ready for prime time.” The only problem was that she didn’t look thinner, so her face was photo-shopped onto a slimmer woman’s body.

What with MySpace and YouTube,...