Reuters drops photographer for digital manipulation

[Gabriel M.A.]

i have to wonder how many manipulated news photos go unnoticed when someone who really knows how to use photoshop properly does something like this.

And that is a scary thought. It's been done before "the digital age"; the problem is that it is easier and the means more accessible.

 

[Flyfisher Tom]

W. Eugene Smith managed to be both...

I respectfully disagree. Eugene Smith has never been accused of manipulating his photos to include false capture, subjects or alterations.

If you mean artist in the sense of great aesthetics, then I agree. In that sense, Nachtwey is a journalist who has artistic aesthetics. But what he captures is real, it is fact, and it is unmanipulated. So is Salgado.

As a journalist, you can create great artistic aesthetics, but you cannot stray from the foundation and reality of a true photo. That is, the creative artistic element comes from the act of composition, timing and capture, but not from the manipulation of the photo AFTER capture. HCB has several very instructive essays on this issue in his Decisive Moment collection.

 

[pesphoto]

I respectfully disagree. Eugene Smith has never been accused of manipulating his photos to include false capture, subjects or alterations.

Totally agree, it's a major difference when Smith maybe used dodging, burning and many times bleach to affect his highlights, contrast,etc and when someone in the digital age actually adds elements to a photo that were not there to begin with.

 

[MinorTones]

Here is a link from Poynter, from a somewhat similar incident. This photog did not clone, or combine images. He burned and dodged, something all of us do, but according to the NPPA he took it too far. He wasnt fired, but the awards he recieved in the NCPPA contest were rescinded. It just goes to show journalists ethics are being tested constantly in the digital world.

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=45119

What do you think is the burning too much?

At first I didnt think so, I couldn't see the harm in darkening the trees in the fire photo, or the darkened background in the firefighter's funeral photo.

You can see side by side comparisons of the images in a link a little further down the page.

I got a chance to follow this guy for a day on the job at the Charlotte Observer while I was in school, he is a great guy and great photog.

-=Mitch

 

[jern]

I respectfully disagree. Eugene Smith has never been accused of manipulating his photos to include false capture, subjects or alterations.

If you mean artist in the sense of great aesthetics, then I agree.

I mean that Smith was an "artist in the sense of great aesthetics" who was also a great news photographer.

While Smith didn't manipulate photos in ways that are so easy with PS, he did spend a great deal of time in the darkroom working on his photos to make them as powerful as possible.

 

[JoeFriday]

that photographer was a propagandist hack and deserved to be fired.. he was also responsible for the Qana photos where a child's body was carted around as a photo prop, from one situation to another, in order to make the destruction and death seem more prevalent than it really was

there was no way that the photographer could not have been aware of what was being staged for his camera, and yet he passed it off as spontaneous imagery

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=45119

What do you think is the burning too much?

Perhaps. It just goes to show that indiscriminate dodging and burning are not as easy as drawing "connect the dots" on the kids' menu. Skill counts all the way, from visualization, framing, using the gear, processing, cropping (or noncropping). Many people want formula rules and apply them to everything.

"Si las cosas que valen la pena fueran fáciles, cualquier tonto las haría"

 

[jaapv]

Here is a link from Poynter, from a somewhat similar incident. This photog did not clone, or combine images. He burned and dodged, something all of us do, but according to the NPPA he took it too far. He wasnt fired, but the awards he recieved in the NCPPA contest were rescinded. It just goes to show journalists ethics are being tested constantly in the digital world.

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=45119

What do you think is the burning too much?

At first I didnt think so, I couldn't see the harm in darkening the trees in the fire photo, or the darkened background in the firefighter's funeral photo.

You can see side by side comparisons of the images in a link a little further down the page.

I got a chance to follow this guy for a day on the job at the Charlotte Observer while I was in school, he is a great guy and great photog.

-=Mitch

Funny thing is, imho, he did not improve the photographs either, except maybe the last one where the lightening of the contrast enhanced the main subject., and that bit was permissable, more like correcting exposure. All three look horribly over-photoshopped in their final versions: Posterized, oversharpened with halo's all over the place.

 

[VinceC]

Good links, MinorTones.

I was a heavy-handed printer in my black-and-white days, and Eugene Smith is/was one of my heroes. I very much agree with the comments about his artistry. But it's widely known that he manipulated his images ... erasing elements by burning, sandwiching negatives (the negative of the lead photo in the Schweitzer essay reportedely does NOT have a silohuetted hand and saw in one corner.

Here's a relevent quote:

Michael Evans (1989), editor of graphics and photography at the Atlanta Journal and Constitution and former White House "photo opportunity" photographer for the Reagan administration, has a more relaxed opinion. Evans cited W. Eugene Smith's work as an example of "emphatically accurate photos" that are nevertheless manipulated. Evans wrote that "Through burning, dodging, bleaching, negative-sandwiching, double-printing and a veritable arsenal of other brilliant special effects, Gene Smith produced prints that dazzled a photographically unsophisticated world that literally thirsted for images" (pp. 26-28). A famous portrait of Dr. Albert Schweitzer by Smith was a composite print from two images because the main negative was technically flawed due to fogging. Even the famous photograph, "The Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange was retouched to eliminate a "ghostly thumb" in a comer of her composition (Ohm, 1980).

Source:
Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach

 

[jern]

What Adnan Hajj did (poorly) with a cloning tool is really nothing more than "burning" that photographers do in a darkroom. He darkened the rising smoke.

The criteria seems to be - if your PS work is detectable to nonphotographers then you're toast.

Let's face it, in the hands of a skilled PS operator a photo can be staged that is virtually indistinguishable from "reality".

 

[Flyfisher Tom]

While Smith didn't manipulate photos in ways that are so easy with PS, he did spend a great deal of time in the darkroom working on his photos to make them as powerful as possible.

Jern,

I agree and see your point. It is a fine line isn't it ... how far dodging and burning takes you before you've 'altered' the reality of the scene (which I define here as what the human eye actually sees). Interesting.

For instance, is it intellectually honest to burn in dark menacing storm clouds in a reportage photo that had otherwise pleasant fluffy bright clouds? I don't know actually 🙂

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

What Adnan Hajj did (poorly) with a cloning tool is really nothing more than "burning" that photographers do in a darkroom. He darkened the rising smoke.

He clearly did more than that. A cloning tool is not used to "burn". If one uses a screwdriver to hammer in nails, well...

 

[Flyfisher Tom]

Ansel Adams made several very different prints of his Moonrise shot over the course of his career. Which is reality, and which is alteration (albeit no introduction of new elements, objects or subjects)?

 

[Flyfisher Tom]

Cloning and Burning in photoshop are two very distinct and different tools. One alters a pre-existing element. The other introduces a non-existent new element.

I think it is fair he was fired for cloning. Burning? that's a tough one

 

[RdEoSg]

He didn't just darken the smoke, he created more smoke! You don't need the clone tool to darken it, just a nice adjustment layer will handle that sorta thing. Anyone remember Time Magazines photo of OJ where they darkened parts in increased the contrast to make him more evil looking?

It really is a slippery slope with photoshop. News organizations have become more strict simply because the general public has issues with digital to begin with. Unfortunatly it takes down the entire industry when people like this go and manipulate things. How many people are going to go and question Nachtwey's photos or someone elses now simply because "that other guy did it and its easy to do"

Most people have no idea how photoshop works. They just assume there is some magic button you hit that says erase tree and there you go.

 

[jern]

He clearly did more than that. A cloning tool is not used to "burn". If one uses a screwdriver to hammer in nails, well...

It seem to me that using "a screwdriver to hammer in nails" is what he is being accused of.

Ok, lets say he did a copy/paste. He did it poorly and got nailed.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

It seem to me that using "a screwdriver to hammer in nails" is what he is being accused of.

Ok, lets say he did a copy/paste. He did it poorly and got nailed.

No, he didn't get fired for being a really bad user of Photoshop. He got fired because he got caught because he's a really bad user of Photoshop.

Very distinct things. "All lambs are animals" and "all lambs have four legs" does not mean "all animals have four legs".

Let me just add this: if there had been a hand blocking his shot, and he had cloned it out, maybe, maybe he'd have some excuse. He altered the subject substantially. His denials were not convincing and were enough to drive his supervisor(s) to simply dismiss his work, having deemed him untrustworthy. Had he come out clean, then I'm sure something would have been worked out. But he's evidently adamant that he "only cleaned dust" and that's the end result.

Like Tricky Dick said: "poppycock".

 

[jern]

Very distinct things. "All lambs are animals" and "all lambs have four legs" does not mean "all animals have four legs".

If I ever get really drunk I'll have you explain that to me.

 

[RdEoSg]

It made sense to me. It's simple logic.

In the end it is pretty simple. The guy manipulated the images. There is no excuse for that and he got what he deserved. He gives all photojournalists a bad name.

 

[dadsm3]

It's more complicated than just banning 'adding' and 'subtracting' from an original photo.....sharpening or a contrast adjustment can change interpretations too. Even publishing extremely unattractive pictures of people can sway the public's perception (Canadians can relate to this when the Tories used pics of Jean Chretien that emphasized the stroke-paralyzed side of his face in campaign TV ads. To the public's credit there was an uproar against the ads and they were pulled quickly).
Careful news-junkies pick many types of what they consider responsible media, and weigh them all against each other. The truth is in there somewhere between Al Jazeera and Fox.....good luck.