News Photography: The Truth is Dead
You probably saw the news story about the photograph recently purchased by Reuters that was discovered to have been altered. The photo shows the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on Beirut and it had been Photoshopped to make the smoke look bigger and darker. The photographer was fired, and his 900+ photographs were removed from Reuters database. Reuters has a zero tolerance policy for doctored photos, and I suppose that is the only stance they can possibly take, but I keep asking myself, what was the crime here? Why the outrage? I fake photography all day long. It’s called advertising. Why is advertising given a pass, while the news is forced to abide by some higher moral standard? All the photographer did was clone some of the smoke and increase the contrast. Big deal. With a little more skill, these changes could have been made in camera by adjusting the exposure and camera position. With a little more Photoshop skill, the photo never would have been questioned. Why was this photo so shocking, and why would an admission that photos in the news are altered be so controversial? In my opinion, the whole scandal has to do with a widespread misconception that a photograph = truth. Let me explain…
The smoke alteration is not the first news photo to be heavily criticized. Dartmouth University has a collection of examples showing photo “tampering” and provides brief descriptions outlining the offenses. The examples range from honest mistakes (color correction of a sunset), to unbelievable (see Oprah on the TV Guide cover), to intentionally misleading (John Kerry and Jane Fonda composite). Many of the examples are found in blatantly editorial situations where I would think there would be some leniency (the O.J. Simpson cover for example), but Dartmouth doesn’t cut them any slack. To them and many others like Reuters, faking a photograph is about the worst thing a photographer can do – even if the main content of the photo remains the same. If there is common trait that the collection shares it is that most of the fakery is easy to spot. If the only fakes that get caught are the ones that are done poorly, I can’t help but wonder how many good forgeries go by unnoticed.
If I had done the Photoshop work on the photo in question, nobody would have ever known that it was a fake. That level of Photoshop skill is nearly mandatory for any graphic designer. Since the alterations didn’t add anything controversial to the image it could be argued that the photographer is not being punished for altering a photo, but for altering a photo poorly. The result is that the flawed photo brings attention to a question that Reuters (and most news organizations) would prefer you didn’t ask: How much photography in the news is doctored? If we are realistic, we will come to the conclusion that much of the photography in the news is fake – or at least touched up to better tell the story.
It is relatively simple to doctor a photo and everybody knows it. The fact that the term “Photoshop it” is a part of the English vernacular shows just how accustomed to fake photography we have become. The interesting thing is that in the face of the massive amounts of doctored photos, most people still expect photos in the news to be unaltered. I think this has something to do with a human desire for photographs to be true. We know the cover photo of Teri Hatcher is touched-up but we don’t question it because we want her to look like that. Likewise when we see news stories that confirm our beliefs we want them to be true. As photo manipulation becomes easier and easier, there is an increase in the demand for photographs that confirm what people want to believe. The market responds by flooding the world with “fake” photography. Today people can believe almost anything they want and point to photography that “proves” their beliefs.
Reuters benefits from people who equate photography with truth because they are the ones “selling” the images. It comes as no surprise then that
they make policies that forbid any altering of photography. The problem with this strict stance is that it ignores the interpretive nature of photography. Cameras aren’t unbiased observers. Different photos of the same subject tell dramatically different stories. A photograph is as much of an editorial tool as the text that accompanies it. No matter how good intentioned an author of a news story is, a point-of-view is going to be represented in their story and the photo chosen to accompany the article is going to reflect that point of view. In the news business admitting that your organization has a point of view is taboo because it sounds much like the dirty words “bias” and “agenda.” Although I would argue that we don’t have much of a choice, I think it is better to have news organizations admitting they have an opinion than news organizations that pretend that they are selling truth.
I say we have no choice because “the news” is changing right before our eyes. Just look at the explosion in news sources. Whether it is the newspaper, blogs, talk radio, cable news, or podcasts, there are more options for news than ever before. We now have the ability to select the filter that we want our news to be delivered to us through. Conservative, liberal, patriotic, religious, comedy, nearly any slant you can imagine. News has little to do with truth and everything to do with providing the type of news that the market is asking for. The news has ceased to exist in black and white and is now a thousand shades of gray. You pick the shade that fits best with your world view. Another way of describing this is to say that the news has become entertainment. If the news is entertainment then news photography can play by “entertainment style” rules that aren’t concerned at all with truth.
At first glance, this seems like an admission that the news is entertainment is a tragedy. It makes you feel like some sacred institution has been corrupted. We long for the good old days when you could trust your eyes. Before we get to sentimental, we should realize that the news has always been motivated by things other than the pursuit of truth – they just hid their motives under a disguise of pseudo truth. Although it may seem like truth is harder to find than ever, at least now it is easier to see the disguises that try to manipulate it. One of the easiest way to manipulate the truth is through photography and perhaps that is why the Reuter’s controversy is resonating so loudly.
I have jumped around quite a bit in this post, so let me summarize with a paragraph to photographers and another paragraph for everyone else:
Photographers,
We need to be honest about the processes that are involved in creating our images. When alterations are made, we should clearly explain what was changed. Even when no alterations are made we should recognize our work as our *interpretation* of an event rather than try to pass them off as unquestionable truth. If we can shake the misconception that photography = truth we will be saved from the abuse that comes from being “exposed” for correcting our images. When we have an image that is controversial we need to be especially careful about the alterations that we make, and be prepared to prove the authenticity of the images.
To everyone else,
It is extremely hard to tell where entertainment ends and the news begins. There comes a point where the public has to take responsibility for how we process the photography and messages that we see and hear. It is not enough to let organizations like Reuters police themselves. Now that the news is delivered by countless different voices we have no choice but to be critical of everything we look at and listen to. We can no longer afford to accept news photography as factual data. We must be critical of all photography and evaluate it based on the context and reputation of the source. We also must accept that photography is an editorial tool and cut news organizations some slack when they use photography in editorial ways.
Unfortunately, the truth is not (and has never been) easy to find. Interpretation is hard, but ultimately we have no alternative. Perhaps the bright side of this gloomy picture is that our visual vocabulary and sensitivity will increase as a result of our increased scrutiny.
August 17th, 2006 at 12:38 am
I think that you are right on about photography. Photography has never been capable of delivering an image in a completely neutral way. It’s either an interpretation of the photographer, or the camera, or both. Even the very first photographs ever taken, because of the limitations of the exposure time, depict empty cityscapes… despite that they may have been bustling. Whether intentional or not, this will permanantly influence the tone and meaning of the subject matter.
If Terry Richardson and Ansel Adams were told to photograph the exact same thing in a subjective way, my bet would be that we’d get two completely different shots.
Our eyes are cameras too, and no two people can walk into a situation and see the exact same thing in the same way. So how can we expect a photograph to depict an event with subjective neutrality? On top of this are the ethical questions of improving exposure, cropping, and color changes. These are undisputedly fair techniques of “correcting” a photograph, yet when used together and with skill, they can completely change the meaning of any image, too. Where does one draw the line on a non-science?
Lets face it, photojournalism is a ruse. A skilled photographer needs to be able to paint a picture and tell a story, regardless of their specific discipline. The only difference, as you said, is that photojournalistic photography needs to appear natural to the average eye. And that’s probably the hardest thing of all to be intentioanlly seeking.
August 17th, 2006 at 12:45 am
It seems a bit harsh that Reuters should fire a photographer with 10 years of experience working for them and well over 900 photos in contribution.
I’m no stranger to cropping and color balance corrections but i think if the nature of the subject still remains the same, that there’s hardly any foul.
And too true. People need to wise up. It’s naive to think that everything we see is the real deal sans faux quality though at the same time i’d prefer if a photographer were honest with his or her readers to the point that we know what’s been heavily altered, if only for the effect it creates.
Still, we shouldn’t all be so easilly fooled. Though i’m not surprised this particular photograher was exposed with all the criticism that’s been aimed at the war lately. People have really taken it upon themselves to analyze what they see. Especially if they disagree with the violence.
As a photographer somewhat, i feel like the cards this guy was dealt had too much of a negative effect on his career. 1 mistake does not a bad photographer make. Reminds me of Clinton’s term as President. Heh.
August 17th, 2006 at 6:16 am
I always thought it was such a shocking issue because the photographer’s photoshop work was so hack. I mean, just look at the repeating patterns in the smoke. No way man. No way.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:40 am
I still wonder why the Weekly World News looks like it is done in Photoshop 3.
August 17th, 2006 at 8:04 am
I disagree with parts of this post, but agree with others. When you say – “why is advertising given a free pass while news has to abide by a moral standard.” you are saying it’s okay if i don’t see the truth all the time. and if it get’s by a little here and there it will get worse and and even less trustworthy. Journalism is supposed to be the 4th branch of government. We need there to be a voice of truth out there, especially in todays oh so corrupt world. Think of it in basketball of a little fould vs. a big foul. You may think it’s unfair to punish someone for a small foul but what if travelling became legal? There’s rules to every game and journalism needs to be the way it is to have any integrity.
Your point about trusting reuters and news sources is very true. We can’t. Their publishers control whatever they want us to see in our media because they and their advertisers pay the money to publish it. Everyone needs to realize that what they are reading isn’t gospel.
Journalism has gotten to a point where we are no longer being censored by the government by subpoenas, and lawsuits, etc. because the journalists and editors are already doing way too much of it for them saying, “oh, we can’t publish that.”
August 17th, 2006 at 8:56 am
Perhaps he was fired for doing cruddy photoshop work. He wouldn’t last four minutes at an ad agency. Seriously, did he just learn how to use the clone tool?
August 17th, 2006 at 9:43 am
Journalists, like designers, are members of a profession. They subscribe to a strict set of values and an ideology that gives their profession meaning and raises it above a mere trade. If you forgo your belief, as a designer, that good design betters the world and so stop perusing all the elements that support good design, then you’ve traded in your profession for rote production. Sure, it happens all the time in design-That’s why there are so many bad designers out there. But do these designers do the world a disservice? I think I know what your answer would be.
The same thing applies to journalism, and the man who was fired was a photojournalist. A cornerstone of the journalism profession is that a journalist reports the truth. Granted, bias and agenda are going to creep in and there’s a whole field of study dedicated to gate-keeping and agenda-setting, but to blatantly flaunt the basic tenants of your profession does a disservice to your profession and the people whom your profession serves.
August 17th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Since the alterations didn’t add anything controversial to the image it could be argued that the photographer is not being punished for altering a photo, but for altering a photo poorly.
That is so “It’s only illegal if you get caught” it’s sad. Greg’s pretty much got it here.
The guy didn’t get fired because of bad Photoshop work, just after it.
You’re correct to say that photography does not equal truth, but the photograph is incidental. The issue is with (photo)journalism which is at least theoretically trying to present truth, Fox News notwithstanding. Comparing-equating-this with what you do for advertising, which almost inherently has an element of lying to it(Budweiser will get me chicks, right?), is ludicrous and shows a near-complete lack of understanding.
August 17th, 2006 at 10:55 am
Actually, let’s step back from the word truth a little, since that inevitably leads to pointless debate over what it really, really means. Accuracy is probably a better term.
That smoke was not there in the original photograph, therefore the photograph is inaccurate, therefore wrong. If you take a photograph of someone with brown eyes and then Photoshop them green, the issue is the same. A photographer(in general), whom you address at the end, is probably allowed to get away with that. A photojournalist(a sub-set of photographers), which is what this is really about, would be misrepresenting, plain and simple.
August 17th, 2006 at 11:44 am
Su, Your proving my point about truth when you condemn Fox news. You are chosing the filter you want to believe and disregarding the truth flavor that you disagree with. Whatever you want to call it (accuracy or truth) surely you agree that people need to be critical of what they see and hear.
I don’t think I said anything about “it only being wrong if you get caught.” I clearly said that photographers “need to be honest about the processes that are involved in creating our images.”
By the way, tell PK if he has something to say, he is welcome to say it here. Pretty nasty. And he seemed like such a nice guy.
August 17th, 2006 at 11:49 am
It strikes me that there are two very different photographic “offenses” being called into question in this issue:
1. The clone-stamped smoke – It’s curious to me that some sense of the actual height of the smoke presented in the image holds this much sway in evaluating this image.
Both the original image and the altered image present certain shared details: an ample amount of smoke coming from the city below, visually illustrating the point that the bombing has caused a significant area of Beirut to erupt in flames. Seeing the two images side by side especially confirms that the addition of another 50-100 feet of photographic smoke doesn’t have that dramatic of an impact on the inherent implications of the smoke being there to begin with – it does, however, enhance the “reading” of that smoke in regards to the sense of the section of the city burning.
2. The photographic tonality / contrast: Comparing the source image and the altered image clearly points out that the dark tones of the image have been enhanced to darken the smoke, but also to enhance the sense of the shadowing on the buildings below it. Most of the discussion of this photomanipulation has rested on the argument that the smoke is made to look much more threatening by darkening its tone.
I’m curious, however, if we then also have to complain about the fact that the city looks like it’s been photographed on a much sunnier day due to the sharpness / darkness of the shadows present on the ground – did it alter our inherent understanding of the image’s message to wonder how cloudy it was or wasn’t when it was taken? I’ll argue that it didn’t…
Taking these two pieces of evidence and extending their underlying arguments out we move towards the following:
1. A photograph is only “true” and accurate if nothing is added or deleted from the image as it is originally captured, which quickly raises these contentious questions:
>So how does this affect the practice of cropping an image?
>Am I only allowed to select the “framing” of my image in the viewfinder of the camera present on site at the point the image is originally taken?
>Do I have to somehow also document all of the visual information that was present in that location when I selected the view which I felt depicted the story information I intended to report on?
>Even allowing for a “no additions / no subtractions” practice of imaging, what about the knowledge that I may have had to take multiple images in order to provide later choices for the image that best captures the moment? Does a viewer have to see a contact sheet of every image obtained to best determine what was kept and what was left out?
2. A photograph is only “true” and accurate if there has been no manipulation of natural lighting conditions and image tonality.
>Does this mean that B/W photography is, by its very nature, a photographic “lie”? If I’ve excluded color as observed by the human eye have I already muddled an image?
>Am I required to make no adjustments to aperture, shutter speed, or focus in order to create a “pure” image of what stands before me?
>Am I required only to make adjustments that guarantee the image has included no enhancement of natural lighting conditions, i.e. my shutter speed, aperture, and focus have to match precisely with what my eye sees on site?
>Does this same practice then extend into the darkroom, digital or chemical, and how do we obtained a calibrated “source” image true to the photographer’s eyes in order to color and tone match our later printed versions to that authoritative source?
>Does this same “calibration” need to extend to the presses, inkjet printers, and any other final output devices in order to perfectly maintain “truth” at every reproductive step?
3. A photograph is only “true” if it has presented visual information without any presence of bias or influence.
>What measuring device can actually detect such a presence in an image?
>How do we “calibrate” a viewer or judge to make such a determination?
August 17th, 2006 at 11:55 am
Simply because I found it rapidly after asking these questions, I provide this link to a discussion pulled from within the California State – Fullerton Communication faculty’s online resources. Many of these issues have been raised before, and many skilled / educated individuals have weighed in regularly on them.
The digital medium will only continue to present new venues for reevaluating these practices.
August 17th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
A standard journalist (working with words) can not attribute quotes to people who were not witnesses to an event, create composite characters, report things that did not happen and so forth. Doing so has gotten more than a few respected reporters fired. They can use the talents and tools they have to report facts, but they can not manipulate those facts. At that point they have left behind news and moved on to fiction. This applies to photojournalists as well. They can use their ability and the tools of their profession to capture facts, but the minute they add elements that wasn’t there the photo is no longer a fact. The same thing goes for staging photos (which if you look at some of this guys other work you’ll find he did with some regularity). That’s not capturing an event, it’s faking one.
Is it okay to manipulate the film in the camera? Sure. It’s the best tool we’ve got and a certain amount of interpretation is inevitable. What about Cropping? Of course, so long as it doesn’t alter the facts of the event in a meaningful way. Suggesting that these choices are the same as adding smoke, blood, shadows, fog or anything that wasn’t actually present is ludicrous and suggests arguments for the sake of argument.
August 17th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
He was a “Photographer”, and what he submitted was a photo-illustration. Reuters wasn’t paying him for an illustrations. What he did was try to create a more dramatic photo so he could sell it to a news service.
Adrian you are admittedly all over the place in your post. It seemed like you were defending the ethically weak ex-Reuters photographer. You later said …photographers “need to be honest about the processes that are involved in creating our images.‚Äù
Former Reuters Photographer: Hey Reuters would you been interested in some doctored Beirut photos? They are really dramatic?
Reuters: No.
August 17th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Just take the damn photo and leave it alone. I know a lot of photographers who would say, if you can’t take a dramatic photo with the camera, then stop calling your self a photographer. Photoshop tools are for poor photographers. Simple.
What if I run a story on how 90% of graphic designers steal their work and charge 300 times what their time is worth. Is this true? No. Could this hurt the design firms? Yes. But by your logic, hey, what was the crime here, it’s just entertainment.
Just take the damn photo and leave it alone.
August 17th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
i have so little patience for stupidity like this. it’s insulting to journalism to equivocate it to advertising.
this post shows enormous misunderstanding of the differences between the disciplines.
journalism is, at its most basic level, assumed to be truthful. editorial design is not required to tell the truth on any level. neither is advertising.
what this douche did was attempt to lie to the public about a situation that’s killing a lot of people, for unknown benefit. there was no clear reason for his alteration, and the reason he gave did nothing but make him look like a total amateur on both technical and philosophical levels.
for you to even suggest that doctoring photography during a situation in which people are dying is okay on any level is insulting.
August 17th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
By the way, tell PK if he has something to say, he is welcome to say it here. Pretty nasty. And he seemed like such a nice guy.
You spoke with him for all of about five minutes. He is the nice one, believe it or not. PK is perfectly capable of choosing his venue for expression himself(I did tell him to comment here), and you are perfectly capable of contacting him directly.
What I find odd is that those defending this keep resorting to allowing for creative interpretation, which is precisely the problem, and what was not allowed here. Read Greg’s comments, and then read them again. Berkbigler’s attempt to quantify 50-100ft of extra smoke as having little impact yet simultaneously “enhancing” the reading of the city burning just starts veering off into the bizarre. Okay, so at what point(in feet, please) would adding smoke have become unaceptable?
Most of these points don’t have absolute answers, no. So they should first of all be avoided, if possible; leave the images alone where you can. If an image looks washed out(unnaturally; the city above probably was that color), tweak the levels a bit, sure. But when an example comes up where someone has amped up only the blood in an image, someone needs to start asking questions. B&W is perfectly valid; that’s a question of medium. If the image was originally shot in color, you have a potential discussion. Cropping is probably going to be fine in most cases. If that crop completely changes the context of the image, again, discussion.
This photographer was, to put it simply, making shit up. What was the point? The city looks plenty on fire in the original.
August 17th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Had originally told him to comment here, rather. He chose not to for his own reasons.
August 17th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Su, point well taken – drifting off into the conceptual ether without giving a little more qualification of it does read as bizarre in retrospect…
Your example of punching up the color of only a pool of blood in an image points to the same idea that my mention of patching in 50-100 ft of smoke was directed at: both are manipulations or enhancements that are meant to use elements of an image to make a specific point.
In the case of the blood, while it may have appeared very tangibly red to the photographer’s naked eye when standing in front of the scene, it may have looked brown, black, or some other color that wouldn’t make it immediately appear to be blood once the photo was processed or published. Using a darkroom technique (digital or chemical) to “push” that color towards one most viewers would immediately perceive to be blood may have been an entirely necessary practice to get it seen in a way much closer to what the photographer personally saw on scene.
For the smoke, it appears that the extra smoke was painted in to add emotional impact – to get a viewer to experience the magnitude of the smoke in the same way it seems that the original photographer originally saw it.
For me, the “extra” smoke doesn’t tamper with the inherent meaning of the image: Beirut was bombed and dramatic damage was incurred – this is what strikes me as being honest about the image, even if manipulation was employed in order to convey this message.
Debating this only on the basis of this specific photo, however, is short-cited. The fact that Adnan Hajj made this adaptation to this image obviously called into question the level of alteration Hajj had made to any of the other 900 images that Reuters had in its library, so they may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater in purging all of his images. I also don’t find it entirely surprising that when faced with the prospect of individually investigating the photo-history of all 900 images, they made the decision to dump the whole archive and wash their hands of the matter.
Going to what strikes me as the deeper debate, however, is the extent of Hajj’s edits to the image. He did not composite a non-damaged photo of Beirut with fire from another source with smoke and flames from completely different ones in order to stage a Beirut attack and pass it off as an actual event – a photomanipulation that has clearer distinction as a falsification of data being presented as truth.
Hajj altered an image in pursuit of a particular message (the factual information that Beirut was bombed on this particular day and smoked in evidence of that fact), and this, more likely, is the ethical concern that we’re tunneling down to: are we comfortable with photography, and moreover with photojournalism, being a means of presenting a message via an edited presentation of facts / evidence?
Are we willing to take, as fact, the knowledge that journalism is the human act of taking data and assessing it – somewhere between pure documentation and pure commentary?
From having worked with pure documentation in past research projects, it becomes quickly clear that some evaluative filter and organizational focusing is necessary to make sense of the pure numbers and details – this is equally true in a photographic sense. Without the application of some shaping theme or message in an act of journalism, written or photographed, I think we would all be struck by the seeming lack of meaning or simple multiplicity of messages that present themselves when we are given “just the facts” without any pre-organization or editting being employed.
August 17th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
PK, Thanks for the comment. It stings much less than a blind slap from clear accross cyberspace.
I don’t know who exactly I am directing this to, but I think it could be any of the commenters here. I see so much journalism that doesn’t hold up to the definition that Greg gave (and Su and PK apparently believe in). Su points to Fox news, and others would point to far left examples. They are all using pretty much the same photography to tell vastly different stories. The meaning of the photography is going to get twisted to fit whatever agenda the photo is attached to. Debating the amount of truth contained in a photo by measuring the amount of alterations seems like a waste of time to me because it ignores my assertion that photographs are by nature editorial. Advances in technology make fake photo almost as easy to create as an illustration. Now that photo manipulation is so simple we need to accept the fact that we may never be able to tell a fake from the real deal. That doesn’t mean that fraudulent photography is acceptable but it does force us to change how we think about photos. My conclusion is that photographs should no longer be confused with truth. Paul is more willing to get into the practical implications, and I appreciate him picking up that part of the debate.
August 18th, 2006 at 9:41 am
I have a varied opinions on this subject. While every bit of news comes from a point of view, there has to be limits on what is acceptable practice. Maybe a journalistic photo can be changed just as much with curves as with the clone tool, but that doesn’t make the clone tool acceptable when supplying news worthy photos. The middle ground for me is magazine covers, which have a historical precedent for manipulated photos (i.e. George Louis ).
Maybe every photographer should have to submit the raw or unedited jpeg photo along with the “color-corrected” end photo. Isn’t there a technical way to tell if a photo has come directly from the camera and not Photoshop? If the change is significant, then maybe the photographer should have to explain the reasons for the change (i.e. the camera didn’t pick up the true colors of the battle). I have no interaction with photo-journalists and news media, so I have no idea how this all works.
Maybe firing the photographer was harsh, but did they really have a choice? It doesn’t matter if we determine that the change wasn’t significant, they need to set a precedent here.
Adrian, You raise good points about photography not being truth. It is important that the public knows that just because it is written in print or happened in a photograph, doesn’t mean it is fact. It is also important to set standards so we can at least put a certain amount of trust in the news that we do get. We can’t all head over to Lebanon and witness the fighting first hand. We have to find someone that we can put a good amount of trust in, and I think Reuters has taken a good step in making that possible.
August 18th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
“This photographer was, to put it simply, making shit up. What was the point? The city looks plenty on fire in the original”
Hey if I were a professional photojournalist, would I really have time to sit around (poorly) messing with my photos, or would I be out there getting more pictures to better tell the story-and making more caish.
August 18th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
1. Just because SOME in the news media distort the truth intentionally does not mean everyone does. To say everyone has a point of view is the same as gross manipulation of an audience to support a particular result is ridiculous.
2. Photos are not eyes. As stated above, to make a photo convey the same information as a pair of eyes would sometimes requires manipulation. In person, a dying child may evoke great pathos, but the photo of the same child may need to be carefully shot and tweaked in a particular way to achieve the same effect.
Because of #2, we must give a great deal of trust to the news media. We trust them to try to present us with information that conveys a true message. Simply presenting the facts is not enough. Many people cannot parse dry facts on their own. So we trust the media to parse them for us. To make this work, we must also police the media, and remove anyone that has so much of a hint of not presenting the truth.
It’s true that many people have decided they’d rather not know the real truth, and they have turned to fake journalism that just feeds their opinions back to them. But that is a separate issue. There are people out there that believe all kinds of insanity, from UFOs to the idea that elves and pixies are real. They have the right to think that way, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to throw up our hands and abandon the idea of objective truth.
August 18th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
I believe photojournalist, like journalist have a certain code of ethic that they need to follow. Journalists can’t just make stuff up, just as Photojournalists can’t just take a picture and then say it is something else.
They were right in firing the guy. People like him hurt their profession. He understood the rules and didn’t follow them.
I understand the public needs a wake up call in critical thinking, but the issue is that what he did what not ethical and to the standards of his profession.
August 19th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Well now i’m not going to say something really serious that I can back up with my profession or anything, do to the fact that i am only 16 years old.
But I’m truly amased that a photographer with 10 years ( I think i read earlier ) of experience can sit and edit his photo, first of all so poorly, but then still go ahead and think – “yeah its good enough, I think I’ll submit it”.
As allready metioned, really those patterns in the clouds, and whats up with the contrast i really think it makes the photo worse.
August 19th, 2006 at 11:40 am
“i have so little patience for stupidity like this. it’s insulting to journalism to equivocate it to advertising.”
…But I have a little MORE patience for stupidity like THAT.
I think you meant “equate”, not “equivocate”. In your statement, the act of comparing A with B is to EQUATE A with B. It then follows that the entire PROCESS of equating A with B would be to EQUIVOCATE.
Grammar and Usage Man to the rescue!
That aside, there are several problems with the blistering criticism I’m hearing. Yes, I’m defending Adrian because he’s right about the comparasions he’s drawing between advertising and journalism.
He’s right because advertising affects the populous just as much as journalism, and the two disciplines readily feed off of one another.
I’m thankful that Jason just came out and said what most of the naive critics of Adrian’s view all seem to be assuming.
“Journalism is supposed to be the 4th branch of government.”
HA HA! Wow. Well, this same hope makes up most of the reason why people are willing to submit to a government that decides to control all avenues of communication. When I read it in the history books, it was hard to understand why any group of people would just allow an authoritarian system to come in and control how we see things.
Now I understand.
Adrian is right in that journalism is no more sacred than advertising, and that the only difference is that journalism has to make out that it IS credible and objective, while advertising does not.
Now, in this light, Adrian is calling us to be honest and ethical in the messages we choose to present, because the media we present through are inherently mutable.
For my part, I took photojournalism classes and decided NOT to pursue a career in a profession that is in the business of continually faking difinitive authority. I’d rather work in advertising, where I am reminded on a daily basis that the images I create influence people’s perceptions in a profound way, and that I have a responsibility to be ethical AND entertaining or enticing.
Journalism seems to require that its practiciaoners constantly blind themselves to the fact that they are only presenting an interpretation, a point of view that they feel best describes the situation.
The Photoshop hack should’ve been fired. But the questions about where to draw the line are kind of irrelevant in terms of feet of visible smoke.
Seriously, you can turn day to night with a fill flash and a short exposure. You can augment the severity of a facial expression or a cast shadow simply by dialing down the exposure.
Here’s a great question for those of you who don’t understand how often in-camera or in-darkroom techniques can be used to alter “pure” images.
Why is Ansel Adams photography so beautiful?
Here’s another.
What makes a great photojournalist?
Because if you wanted a truly subjective photograph, you should hand a camera to a little child. Why don’t we just hand cameras to little kids when it’s time to capture an innocent, fair and relativey objective view of the world? Kids are great at capturing every little moment. It’s because they aren’t good at capturing what we WANT to see.
My verdict is similar to Adrian’s:
Photojournalists are experts in depicting exactly what they want you to see, just like advertisers are. They both have the requirement of selling their images to be displayed in the public eye.
The point of view, the camera, the choice of one photo over another, they all affect how an event, product, etc. is portrayed.
For example, have you, pro phtographer or otherwise, ever taken a “bad” photo? Not that the frame was blurry, or washed out, or too dark. But a photo where Grandma looked like an ogre? Or where Susie had a look on her face like she just tasted a bug?
Why don’t we use those photos in our holiday cards to family and friends? Aren’t they honest depictions of the event? Aren’t they honest depictions of how they looked?
Oh, that’s right. Because Grandma doesn’t USUALLY look like that. And we wanted Susie to be pretty for the photo. And we want everyone to think that our family is nice and sweet.
And we all want to believe that our enemies are at their most vicious, and that babies are at their most vulnerable, and heroes are at their strongest, and so on.
Choosing the right images to enforce those ideas is not a science. It is an art, for the journalist and the advertiser alike.
August 20th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
Agreed with all the others taking you to task for comparing news directly with advertising.
At its core, advertising is about lying beautifully (at best, it can be called grossly exaggerating the truth).
At its core, news is a presentation of facts (or, truth with or without context).
When you ‘photoshop’ the news, it ceases to be news anymore. It becomes propaganda.
August 21st, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Although I do agree with your points about accepting the fact that photography does not equal truth, I have to agree with the dissenters here. Haydesigner said it best with the last comment. News HAS to be held to a higher standard than advertising.
Although we all know that we have to be critical of everything we hear and see, no one has time to research into every single image shown in news-related magazines, newspapers & online articles to find out if it was real or doctored.
We also have to be realistic about the people living in society. The vast majority of people will blindly accept all news as long as it doesn’t disagree completely with their strongly-believed, truthiness-based reality of the world.
Any concerned person in the world should abhor such blatant alterations of reality. According to your post it would be OK if Fox News doctored some images to show that WMD were indeed found or NYT doctored images to distort the actual bombing of 7 innocent civilians to a exagurated 100 civilians dead.
We have to confront all blatant doctoring of truth in all forms wherever it pops its ugly head.
August 23rd, 2006 at 9:52 pm
“When you ‚Äòphotoshop’ the news, it ceases to be news anymore. It becomes propaganda.”
That is true, but that doesn’t mean that the inverse is true, that un “Photoshopped” photos are true. Unaltered photos can be propaganda, too. That is the heart of my post. Why is it so hard to understand that a good photographer isn’t creating truth, they are telling a story?
I am not opposed to standards and rules for ensuring the accuracyy of photography. Bennett raises a good question about retaining the digital signature of a file in order to prove that a photo is unaltered. The nature of digital is so open to forgery, that photographers who still use film would have an advantage if they ever had to “prove” that their images are legitmate. Being able to trust that a photo hasn’t been doctored is a valuable thing. That doesn’t really solve the problem of using photography in a manipulative manner, however. Even the most technically accurate photo can still be as misleading as the worst propaganda.
The problem with creating a formula for creating a photograph that is “true” is that it can’t be done. Regardless of who the person is, I can portray them as kind or evil depending on how I use photography. I could follow the guidelines and still end up with an editorial photo. A big example I see in the news is when they show their “stock” images of people. When the news wants to portray the guilt of someone, they show the ugliest photo they can find. They repeat the footage that has the most shock value. Is that fair? Would the opposite be fair; to show suspected criminals in a positive light, helping grandma cross the street or whatever? To use Su’s word, is one portrayal more accurate? No, they are both manipulative.
I am amazed by people that can so easily buy into journalism as an organization committed to telling the truth. I can appreciate the idealism of a journalist that goes into the profession with the goal of proclaiming the truth, but that doesn’t make me any less skeptical.
Also, I can think of nothing worse than a population that only gets its information from one source. Personally, I get my news from a combination of cable news, internet, and radio. None of those sources would I consider to be completely truthful. The benefit of having so many different news sources competing with each other is that they expose the bias and flaws of their competitors. Competition results in exposing sources that are false and it points out the agenda and motivation of their competitors. I can think of nothing more dangerous than just accepting one source at face value. Sure, that would be convenient, but it has major consequences. We are seeing the consequences right now. Our country has divided into violently polarized segments that can’t communicate with their opposition. Rather than listen to the points of their opposition, they are willing to mindlessly accept the flavor of truth that they have subscribed to and hate anything that goes against their belief. I think that is really the tragedy of the current news climate.
August 24th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
I personally feel that this goes beyond a photoshopped image or two, and extends into our culture’s desire to simultaneously be able to “fake” reality, and to be able to discern between those fakes, and actual reality. Now I know that statement is contradictory, but follow me here. With the advent of readily available digital manipulation and creation tools, people have been changing the way we see the world. There is a large contingent whose goal is to create digitally altered images, digitally rendered worlds, and other “fake” things, and make them look so real that a layperson can’t tell the difference. For example, did Ian McKellan -really- pick up the Golden Gate Bridge in X-Men 3 and prop it in between the mainland and Alcatraz? Of course he didn’t, it’s a preposterous notion that he could do that in reality. However, it sure looked like he did it in the movie, now didn’t it? Movies, videogames, digital photography, television, all forms of media strive to create these realistic depictions.
Then, there are a contingent of skeptics and naysayers that are quick to point out if something is “faked” or not. These people strive to be the quintessential source for what is “real” and what isn’t, among their peers. To a lesser extent, most designers that I know, people familiar with compisiting images and such, like to point these things out simply because they notice them.
Keeping these two contingents in mind (and no, not everyone falls into one or the other), and taking into account that EVERY PHOTOGRAPH EVER TAKEN has a perspective, a slant, to it; now ask yourself what good a “line” of acceptability would do? And yes, I’d prefer the answer in feet of digitally altered smoke.
This guy got fired because he’s a hack at Photoshop. Let’s not kid ourselves. Had he altered the photo in a way that it wasn’t BLATANTLY obvious, he’d still have a job.
Is photoshopping an image to better suit your needs ethical? Probably not. Is using a fill flash and low exposure to darken the sky, in order to convey a prevailing sense of doom ethical? Again, probably not. However, several of the posts here seem to imply that it is. A camera is simply another tool of an artist. Painting detailed strokes or broad strokes, every image is a creation. A camera isn’t a magical truth-box.
August 25th, 2006 at 6:38 am
He should be fired on his poor photoshop skills alone…It dosn’t even look believable.
August 30th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Reuters definitely should have fired him. From a journalistic standpoint you have to tell/show a photograph or story from the most neutral viewpoint possible. Take this at face value, because I know and have heard the arguments that journalism is rarely neutral.
But in this case, this is photojournalism. Not advertising. Not fine art photography. Photojournalism ascribes to a set of standards, one of which is that you can’t add details that weren’t there.
You mentioned the OJ picture on the cover of Time and Newsweek. One is doctored and it definitely paints OJ to look more sinister. As designers I don’t think we can just say that it’s “just” cloning and adjusting the contrast. If used correctly, those simple tools can change the message a photograph is sending.
And if these little touches truly didn’t matter, why did the photographer add them in the first place? I think he knows that adding smoke and contrast makes the photo more dramatic. Perhaps painting the Lebanese people as more sympathetic and/or the Israelis as more sinister.
September 7th, 2006 at 11:09 am
I couldnt be bothered reading your entire rambling useless post (or the lame comments that followed). Maybe its the design of your site (and yet you are a designer – go figure) or maybe it was the rambling over and over again of nonsense (i guess that is why you are a designer and not a writer).
But regardless I thought I would include my two cents worth here.
The photographer was fired for showing bias in his photographs – a bias that was unfounded and simply wrong. It is pretty simple.
The guy wanted to make Israel look baaaaaaad, evil, and what they were doing to seem like a horrendous crime. Rather than the accurate portrayal of a nation trying to stymie an enemy that hides behind women and children for cover.
I doubt you will post this – a form of your own bias (and it is your own site).
ciao.
George
October 9th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Jason said: “He should be fired on his poor photoshop skills alone‚ĶIt dosn’t even look believable”
Exactly, and this is the key. It is meant to be detected as a fake to damage reuters reputation in reporting on Israels war on Lebanon. Most reporting has been unfavourable to Israel and the fake photo has since been used to question all the reporting. This is how intelligence agencies work and even if the photographer was fired, it is only an assumption that the fake was done by him/her.