Answer. The reason why the photographer chose to manipulate the picture was because he wanted to create a coping mechanism for the soldiers and the civilians during the civil war. Hence he blurred the lines.

What is contrast? Contrast is the range of brightness, from lightest to darkest, in an image. A high-contrast image will have very bright highlights and very dark shadows. Sometimes an image's highlights may be almost pure white, or the shadows may be almost pure black: high contrast.

If a photo is too bright, it's considered to be overexposed. Too dark, and it's underexposed. But the Goldilocks-approved version of almost any picture is what's known as a proper exposure – it's neither too dark nor too light.