Photographer Fired For Digitally Altering Photo

bewert writes "A sign of things to come? Is this kind of thing happening without anyone catching it? This short article notes that war photog Brian Walski was fired for combining elements from two photos to make one with 'better composition'. Here is the 'Editor's Note' detailing the transgression. It's not really highlighted on their front page ;) I wonder how often this type of Photoshopping is done without anyone noticing it? To paraphrase Pink Floyd, "Mother, should I trust the government?"..." Another submitter points out an article examining digitally altered magazine covers. Slashdot has done several stories on unnoticeable digital alterations; here's 1, 2, 3 old stories to peruse.

Comments

Re:Where's Waldo?

[shiflett]

Assuming you are looking here, "Waldo" is (I think) a few different people, mainly the guy to the left on the soldiers leg in the top-left photo (the guy looking left who has something red around his neck).

In the top-right photo, the same guy is partially blocked by the soldier, but you can still see his knee and back. On the doctored photo, this guy appears on both the right and left side of the soldier's leg. In addition, there are two people a bit more in the distance behind "Waldo" who also appear to the right and left. Since the angle chanegd slightly between photos, these people were duplicated.

Those three are the only duplicates; the crowd to the right of the soldier in the doctored photo is identical to the crowd in the top-right photo. To the left of the soldier's leg is the crowd as seen in the top-left photo.

Re:What will O'Reilly say?

[Megahurts]

If they had used the real photo on the right, it would be a picture of an American soldier pointing a gun at a man carrying his child.

It takes a severe cluelessness to draw that conclusion. It's obvious in the soldier's stance that he's not pointing anything at anyone, and furthermore, between his uniform, his weapon, and the supplemental information, he is quite clearly British.

Do it for a living

[Keighvin]

Okay, there have been several comments on this so far but I feel obligated to chime in since digital photo enhancement/adjustment/manipulation is part of my occupation.

The photo, with the boy, is real. Dispite the fact that the selective discoloration appears to be conveniently placed on the tank directly behind him, those things do happen in photography. All the shadows match the lighting angles and the objects in the scene, given that the sun was at a very low angle and the shadows compressed (vertically, extended laterally) by the angle of the photographer. Any manipulation which may have been done is not distinguishable at this resolution.

The boy *removed* is most obviously fabricated for reasons both editorial (with regards to composition) and technical. Technically: the yellow material visible against the structure in the background behind and underneath the tank (which looks to be signage or equipment, it's difficult to make out given the depth of field used) is utterly plagued by a patterned replication, showing unskilled cloning tool usage. The front armor is not only magically repaired in this version, but also has tiles which mirror each other at their joint. The now inexplicable shadow which matched the boy previously remains, and is too sharp to be cast in conjunction with the antenna (or whatever it may be) contributing to the one next to it, even given the vertical/perspective shadow compression which makes this a more forgiving detail.

Editorially, that's *not* the way to shoot a tank. Were it the subject, the depth of field is acceptable but it's too large in frame which would distract from it; the image has also been shot to compress multiple planes of perspective, but the reasoning for that choice is completely devoid from this version. There remains no balance, sense of motion, or romanticism of the elements which would suggest this to be a professional photograph. Given that other talent is still obvious (use of lighting, combination of aperature use even with telephoto for precision DoF control) these omissions make it suspect. It's only when the relationship between tank and boy are present that the photo makes journalistic or artistic sense.

It's like watching one of those "funniest home video" gag ("gag" is an editorial pun here on my part) shows where people start trying to pick apart how the situation could have happened or been staged, without noticing the signs which do not appear in *front* of the camera: filming scenes without significant memorable of photographic content, panning to locations before the action occurs in preparation, etc.

There are multiple ways to tell a fake, and gentlemen I do tell you: the "no boy"'s a hack job.

(As a slight aside, the tank appears to be Israeli given the modern hebrew writing thereon and was not in motion when the photograph was taken)