George W(ashington)

This is George Washington, or at least it is a statue said to represent his likenesss – no sign of his wooden teeth here though.

Of course the “wooden teeth” story about George Washington is just another one of those myths that have been created about him over the years (just like the infamous “chopping down the Cherry Tree” tale, which was entirely made up by biographer “Parson” Weems in 1806). George’s teeth were actually made from a combination of filed down animal teeth, human teeth (not his own, obviously), and ivory. They were said to have become quite badly stained, and that this brown colouring gave rise to the legend of them being made from wood.

None of that should lessen his importance, or any of the great things he actually did achieved in his lifetime.

What did this image teach me?

Now, it’s probably immediately obvious that I’ve changed the background of this image – I know there are those that consider this sort of editing to be “cheating”, which is not a point of view that I share. People should be free to amend their photographs in any way they see fit. I think there are times when honesty and accuracy are essential to a photograph (photo journalism is a prime example), but for your average work of photo-art then all bets are off.

So you could say this image taught me not to worry about being overly “truthful” and instead just enjoy the image for it’s aesthetic value.