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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.
Great, this is just what we need: another reason for Bill O'Reilly to get his panties in a twist over the LA Times.
He already seems to think they are actively aiding the Iraqis by spreading propaganda, and this surely won't help sway his opinion.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
Gee, I saw the 3 photographs and really don't see what the big deal is.
;-)
I can see firing the photographer if he was trying to make something appear to have happened that didn't. That's not the case here. The original and re-touched photograph are conveying the same thing. This is a tempest in a teapot.
I bet that famous photo of the sailor swapping spit with that woman after the war was over was probably Photoshopped too! I bet he was smelling his arm and they inserted her into the scene.
If this were an artistic piece for a magazine, no problem. Hair on Christie Brinkley's upper lip, no problem.
A war photo that is altered so the depiction is inaccurate is unacceptable on any scale. There is not concrete place you can draw a line and say "this much alteration is okay, but this much changes the story".
News commentary can be editorialized by any anchor. Pictures and video have alway been held in higher standing for thier direct integrity. This will rais equestions.
"Only after the altered photo appeared Monday did editors notice that some civilians in the background appeared twice"
OK now fire Taco next time he posts a story twice !!
>> To paraphrase Pink Floyd, "Mother, should I trust the government?"..."
The real question is
Should I trust "Mainstream media".
Add to this investiagte why Peter Arnett was fired from CNN a few years ago. Read what Harry Stein wrote in his Autobiography about stories he made up to make his political point.
This is not the government, it's the free press.
to paraphrase Pink Floyd, "Mother, should I trust the government?
While I respect your taste in music -- HUH? The guy was an LA Times photographer. Nowhere does he state that he has any affiliation with the government. The modification in question does not actually change much in the photo (I do NOT deny that it is wrong, just stating that it is not in any way propoganda IN THIS CASE). Don't blame the government for EVERYTHING.
In other news, Kudos to the times for catching the guy, and also for admitting and publishing the "error."
Which one is the original - this or this.
The consensus on the BBS I found these at was that both are touched. Go figure.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
That I bet a few photographers miss Stalin.
Google doesn't index user sigs, so stop trying to "Google Bomb" with them.
Photography is already biased enough depending on what you LEAVE OUT of the photo, or how you juxtapose certain elements, or use telephoto to change the size-distance ratio of objects. Use a long enough lens, and it looks like the kid running across the street is about to be bowled over by the tank, when in fact the tank is a block away.
Anything other than news photos and it's fair game.
I looked for 20 minutes and I couldn't find him anywhere!
Or get it from the horses mouth here
they photoshoped the heads of wiesels onto the bodies of the french and german government. photoshop has no place in news gathering.
Yes, the modifications were mostly compositional, but there is a *very good reason* for the L.A. Times banning the alteration of photos: because once you do it, the only difference between minor compositional alterations and ones that change the content in more significant ways is *just a matter of degree*. In other words, once you cross that threshold, the amount of alteration or significance of the alteration that is permissible is only a matter of judgement, a moving line in the sand. Banning such alteration of photographs outright shows good judgement by the publisher and demonstrates their commitment against the falsification of photographic evidence.
Of course, this does nothing to prevent completely staged photographs, but at least it's something.
I think the real problem with the unannounced altering of photos is that it has the ability to alter the meaning of a situation. I'm somewhat amazed at any discussion that argues that this is alright to do in any way, such as when the alteration does not change the fundamental nature of the shot.
The danger in allowing such discussion to breed is that it opens photographs to subjectivity. The editors alter photos to make them more dramatic, create more of an impact. But they are forging an image that did not exist in reality!
Altering photographs without providing a notice to the viewers allows the editors to become part of the story, enhancing and molding it, providing their own subliminal opinion, rather than reporting on it and allowing the reader to make up their own judgement. It's my opinion that media opinion and prejudice is already pervasive in news reporting worldwide, not just in the U.S. media.
We do not need any more opinions in our news, especially when those opinions are disguised as fact. If the situation wasn't dramatic enough, then it doesn't deserve to be 'pumped up' for our modern senses.
Almost all commercial photography is touched up in some way. Almost any stripmall photography place will touch up photographs to remove skin blemishes and artifacts in the picture, for a price. However, there is a big difference between altering a model pose where you're buying the perfect look, and a news photo where you're buying (supposively) unbiased fact.
A local newspaper had a similar problem with this a few years back. They were doing a story on teenage drug use in schools and used as a picture, the photograph of a girl bent over into her locker, snorting something. The photograph was a posed one, and was identified as such in the fine print of the article, but enough people got outraged, thinking that it was so prevalant that a roving news crew was able to catch such an event, taking place so casually. This gave the impression of the problem seeming worse than it actually was.
However, for news organizations, if they're going to modify images, make it obvious. Nobody gets upset about a collage mix of multiple images to represent a theme. But if the resulting image is represented as a single snapshot in time, you start to cross ethical boundaries.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
As a former journalism student and someone who has been in print a few times in High School and College, I think I can say what part of the Big Deal is.
Journalism is supposed to be accurate and unbiased. In practice this rarely happens, but the theory is there. The paper has a policy forbidding the modifying of photos, and they enforce it.
It's similar to the honor code many schools use. Cheating only hurts the student in the long run, but it can still get them kicked out of the school.
The point is the moral and ethical code. Journalists have a moral imperative to report the truth, and any modification, any stretching of the truth is a step down a slippery slope towards outright lies and falsehoods.
The photographer was fired for good reason. A modified photo is fine as a piece of "art" but as journalism it brings the entire publication's integrity and honesty into question.
I could go on, but my hope is that the majority of the people reading this thread realize that what the photographer did was a violation. It's not like photoshopping a playboy shoot to remove a pimple. This is falsifying the news. It's a small fake, a minor tweak, but it's still presenting falsehood as reality.
And before you make a wise ass reply about the fallacy of journalistic integrity in the real world, keep in mind, I did say "In practice this rarely happens".
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Wait, if this is fake, then is it possible that Bert is not evil?!
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
This happens more often than you think. Hopefully not for journalistic photos, mind you. But advertisers modify pictures all the time. Or did you really think that models always have perfect skin? Thank you, smudge tool!
I recently did some work for a friend who is putting on a play (shameless plug, if you live in San Francisco, go see "Shirley Mental") and she had taken some publicity photos. Unfortunately, none of them were perfect, so she had me combine the background from one with actors in another, and in another case remove a third actor from a shot to more prominently feature two others.
For journalistic photos, though, it would be unethical. Oddly enough, simply cropping an unacceptable bit out of a photo would probably be considered okay with most papers. Adding things is a definite no-no.
I can understand how a journalist could forget that though, considering how easy it is to modify photos. In many cases, it wouldn't matter, but a newspaper simply can't afford to be seen as making things up. They can't have people questioning whether what they see in a paper is real or not.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Every camera sold can have internal circuitry to take the CCD image and perform an MD5 hash of the pic. The MD5 hash would then be XOR'd with a one-time-pad. The OTP would be burned into the camera at the factory and would be inaccessable from outside the camera CPU. The OTP would then be databased (also inaccessibly) into the grand federal OTP camera registry database. The OTP having been XOR'd with the MD5 hash of the pic, would then be put into the pic filename. Now, whenever someone wants to check to see if the picture has been unaltered they just have to go to the federal camera database website and submit the picture. The backend will then validate the pic.
Will it be done? Not in your lifetime.
+2 cents contributed.
A bank employee was fired for combining his account with that of a customer with a much higher balance.
When asked about the reason for his actions he simply stated that the combined balanced looked much more dramatic on his bank statements.
You will have to pry my proprietary software $$$ from my cold dead hands!
If you have a copy of the mag sitting around, please look at the photo and tell me if you agree.
I find it sickening that a supposedly respectable publication would edit historical photographs for the sake of modern political correctness. We wouldn't want our young kids learning that, way back during the Depression, people smoked cigarettes, would we?
Oprah's head on Ann-Margret's body. It is from 1980 I think.
http://www.uturn.org/Fingering/opra.jpg
Look behind and infront of the knees of the gunman
here you go: http://www.uscoles.com/pclens.htm
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Sorry, a photograph, as in silver nitrate can be manipulated in the dark-room so why is anyone suprised about digital manipulation. The only difference is the process is faster and less smelly.
As regards journalisitic integrity, I'm sorry but there is none. Most journalists give the reports that their employers want, i.e. "Is there anyone here who has been raped who speaks English?". Of course they only tell the truth but it is a keyhole view of the truth. Both the original photo and the presentation can change the perceived meaning 100%.
Analog photos can be altered too. One is by setting lighting and degree of focusing. The NY Times Sunday magazine uses portrait photos with harsh lighting- wrinkles, acne scars, blush marks, become pronounced. This the opposite of "air brushing" or softening frequently done in yearbook and wedding photos. I find these harshened portraits interesting.
The color of photos can be changed too. "Fuji-izing" is brightening hues beyond reality. Home photographers think this makes better pictures. At least one major film vendor builds this into their film.
An interesting controversy about eight years ago was a NY Times magazine piece on OJ Simpson. Readers complained his cover photo was darker than reality, making look like an African menance.
"Models that appear in this magazine may have certain features enhanced or exagerated. The pictures in this magazine should be construed as fantasy imagery only."
The layout department for Sports Illustrated was on I think the "Best Damn Sports Show Period" saying that most of the swimsuit models legs are elongated and breast "bubbled" after the shoot with PowerBook G4s on spot and then further at headquarters. He made a joke saying that Niki Taylor was so short and they wanted her on a two page wide spread. So, they lengthened her legs. If she were real, she'd me Yao Ming's sister!
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Scientology has been caught retro-doctoring photos Stalin style to remove people after they've fallen out of favour, like Reed Slatkin who's in big trouble for a long-running investment ponzi scam.
I hope the press has better ethics than Scientology.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Someone else pointed this out... In the left hand original at this site, there is a guy squatting in the foreground at the bottom left corner of the picture. He's got a red and white bandana around his neck. In the picture on the right, he's now partially obscured by the soldier, but you can see his back just to the right of the soldier's leg. In the composite, you see both.
It becomes fairly obvious when you inspect the crease in his clothes formed by his upper and lower leg, and the pattern of dirt smudged on his knee.
You can tell the photographer changed perspective slightly by noting the position of the blue water cooler. It's pretty much in the middle of the left picture, fairly unobscured. In the right picture, it's now only visible between the arm and leg of the squatting man in the white tunic. Taking that shift in perspective into account, it becomes pretty obvious that the red/white bandana man is in the composite picture twice.
--maybe not, but just in case, this is for the people here in other countries who might think it's all lock step goose steppers here based on those phony polls they run. I'm a "constitutionalist" now, well, call myself that, because those goons running the political show have sullied the term "conservative", I have been one for 4 decades (close) now, the difference is, I don't believe in murder, theft and crooked international business intrigue as a means to an end like the goons are doing now. Bill O'Reilly and goofballs like Michael Savage and gasbag Rush to psyops Limbaugh aren't real classic american conservatives. They are dangerous huckstering fascists, big time wrestling comes to news and commentary, paid off goons. They are part of whipping up the war and "terror" hysteria now in anticipation of the creation of the new Brownshirts, version 2.0., to go along with Patriot Act and Homeland Security and whatnot.
It's a junta, so I'll just call it that. Junta. And the brownshirts are coming, inevitable now.
The new (sorta) term for them is "neoconservative". That is too polite a term, IMO. I prefer fascist goons. Lying Thugs is good too. Real US conservatives are much more inclined to be isolationists/non interventionists when it comes to foreign military adventures, it's just now, with neocon fascists "in power" in the administration, they have hijacked the term "conservative". And there's a large percentage of the population, not a majority by any means but still large, who don't have much public voice, but are both conservative, patriotic, non war mongering, and aren't faked out by those goons, they just aren't in any leadership positions in the R party because they aren't crooks, and they certainly are in the minority in the mainstream US broadcast media, which now is a blend of neocon and naieve-brand liberalism. Sad but true. There is no "classical" Liberalism (which is a decent philosophy, more similar to what is called Libertarianism now) nor Old Fashioned conservatism or "paleoconservativism" (again, decent, different but still decent, tending to more protectionism,less "foreign entanglements", much smaller government, etc) represented, except mostly on the net and on shortwave and on forums.
With that said,politics aside, the photo altering story is a good headsup, along with the news anchors using phony backdrops and other sorts of digital altering techniques. Remember the bushgoon puppet-in-chief in front of the phony backdrop painted to look like "made in america" crates of product? That was another photo/video propaganda psyops move. I imagine some arabic sites and europaen sites are doing similar, too, it's just too easy to fake stuff now.
What's the quote? "In war, the truth is the first victim"
The photos are starting to be fake, the text has been highly altered and spun, constantly. All you need to do is use google news, pick any breaking story, look at a half dozen different versions of it from around the world. Altering just a few words and adding in a few choice trigger buzz words can spin the same exact story in several different directions. Example, this works both ways, from either side, just some examples on how this war gets reported: The "enemy" doesn't have "soldiers" they have "terrorists". The "badguys" are cheating and doing sneaky things that are "warcrimes", the "good guys" use special operations or commando techniques and pull off "specatacular and brave and daring raids".
And stuff like that there.
When I am reading the "war news" now, I take the very highs and the very lows from all the sources, and throw them away, then average the middle, that is most likely the closest to any sort of "truth" being reported.
Having worked for both USA Today and washingtonpost.com, I can tell you that know responsible news organization would tolerate this kind of behavior. Most have very explicit standing policies against digitally altering photos for publication with severe consequences (including termination) for violation of the policy.
While this seems a pretty clear cut violation, there is also some room for debate as to the proper role of Photoshop. Is cropping for presentation acceptable? Color correction? Graphical overlays (to point out characteristics of the photo or enhance the nformation value)? How about masking out someone who's permission you couldn't get for the photo?
Remember that the key asset of any news organization is the public's trust that they are reporting the "facts". While there is no real expectation of complete objectivity, altering the truth the fit your perspective will always be unacceptable. When you alter a photograph with the intent of changing it's meaning (even if it supports the other facts in the story), it erodes that trust.
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)
Any spoon would be too big.
A picture within a news publication is news. Within the context of fact-reporting journalism, we should be able to expect that all representations are factual and undoctored. Outside of that realm (in artistic / and other subjective contexts), we know we can't have that expectation.
There are already some very subjective elements in news reporting and it doesn't build our diminishing trust in the media when we can no longer expect images to be accurate and undoctored.
It wouldn't upset my news gathering experience in the least if "MS"NBC, CNN, ABC, Fox, Al Jazeera, and the rest of their ilk would just cut all the adjectives from their stories completely and leave me with facts; objective reporting. It would take less time to get caught up on current events, and let me come to my own conclusions about how I feel about what's being reported.
I agree that in this case, the changes are pretty trivial and that firing the reporter is pretty extreme, but anything not altered from it's original visual depiction is still not fact. People are probably overreacting because there's so damn much spin in our world these days...
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
In all honesty, this is the photographers fault. His real mistake was taking bad photos. His attempt to fix this created an even bigger mistake. I take a lot of photos, and learn from them. This is how you get better. You missed the shot, you get another. But you keep your eyes open for The Shot cause its going to be there. You learn to anticipate it. You see it, you get it, you've got it. And your good. My whole point is that the photographer made mistakes and is accountable for it. The fact is he tried to cover up his mistake and got caught. Suck it up and learn. I'm guessing he caught the before and after shots, and missed the middle shot that had what he was trying to compose. Of course no photographer wants to admit missing the shot and having his/her work made the laughing stock. So you doctor the photo. Here's my question to you though. If he's worked for them for this many years, how many other important photos has he doctored? It brings his whole history into play.
To use the insane words of Michael Moore The "doctored" photo used in publication is a view into a fictional word. And its much like Michael Moore's Columbine film where he takes a gun to the bank (they gave out certificates, not guns). I digress.
Point is that we all believe what we see as truth. While its true that a photograph is a split second of reality, we can still pull some meaning from the image.
Journalists misrepresent and spin the truth. We all know that, we all do that ourselves. Photojournalists do it too, but to manipulate a photograph to create a fake, or fictional, reality is worse than composing a shot. I trusted the image as truth, but that scene never existed.
It doesn't matter whether or not how the photo was manipulated. To adjust the scene to mean something positive or negative is irrelevant. The bottom line is that the view that we are trusting as real never happened, ever.
The line is very fine. Removing a powerline would be okay in one instance, but not in another.
"Let's just make the blood on these people that were killed a little more red..."
to paraphrase Pink Floyd, "Mother, should I trust the government?
This is not censorship in any way shape or form. The article makes it very clear that Times policy is that no photographs be altered. The Photographer should have been aware of this policy, and chose to ignore it. This is not a case of the government not liking what the photograph portrays and telling the newspaper not to print it. That would be censorship. Firing a photographer for violating policy is not.
However, even if the Times themselves had not liked what the altered image showed, and pulled the photograph whatever reason (it was unpatriotic, it portrayed soldiers in an unfavorable light, etc.) even that would not be censorship. It would be a private business deciding not to show a picture for their own reasons. I've noticed that many Slashdotters don't seem to understand that censorship is only when the government forces someone to stop saying something, printing something, etc. A private business can decide not to say something, or to fire an employee for saying things that they believe are damaging to their business, and be perfectly within their rights.
Still shouldn't trust the government though.
My user number is the sum of 4 squares.
An all too common practice is a video interview technique called the "reaction shot". The way this interview production technique works is when you are interviewing someone, mostly the camera is on the interviewee, but sometimes you want the image to switch back you you while the interviewee is still talking (this is called an "reaction shot"). It can be certainly be used to manipulate the emotions of the viewer (imagine a picture of the interviewer rolling their eyes, or glaring angrily, etc, etc).
When you see this on tv, one might think that there are two cameras and this is a contemporaneous view of you "reacting" while the interviewee is talking, but it isn't usually the case. Most reaction shots are filmed before or after the interview in the studio when the interviewee is not there since usually only one camera is used and the reaction shots are "insert-edited" with a contiguous audio track to lend the appearence of contemporaneous action.
Ahh, the magic of television. Reaction shots are done to improve composition and production values (staring at the interviewee for a long time can make you turn the channel in boredom, and a wide pan with a single camera will get you sick like a ping-pong match). You might say that since the audio track is unedited, this is a fair representation of what occured during the interview, but it's easy to see how this can be a slippery slope. In fact in the hollywood movie, Broadcast News, they have an all too true scene about the reaction shot where William Hurt tries a few times to fake tears to improve a reaction shot.
Although you might think that this "reaction shot" stuff is just a lot of hype, but during the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debates, it's widely thought that the reaction shots of Nixon fidgetting and sweating while Kennedy was talking likely contributed to Kennedy winning the presidency. Polling data taken after the debate seemed to give the edge to Nixon among those who heard the debate on radio, where the tv watchers gave the edge to Kennedy. You can thank Don Hewitt technical director in charge of the television switcher at the debates (who went on to be the executive producer of 60 Minutes).
Here's a quote from a Boston Globe article which explored the question if this type of insert editing was "ethical" journalism. Something to think about when you are watching the evening news...
So I concede the point. The original, with the boy, is enhanced with some blurring and some burning in, and that's about it. Personally I think they did a pretty bad job of it, but that's just my opinion, and being a bad job doesn't make it a fake.
BTW the version without the boy given the same treatment is really obviously fake, with clear cloned/rubber stamped areas.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Clearly, the moral here is that Photoshop (and similar programs) should be made ILLEGAL.
Best Buy can have you arrested
From the alt.usage.english FAQ:
The idiom "couldn't care less", meaning "doesn't care at all" (the meaning in full is "cares so little that he couldn't possibly care less"), originated in Britain around 1940. "Could care less", which is used with the same meaning, developed in the U.S. around 1960. We get disputes about whether the latter was originally a mis-hearing of the former; whether it was originally ironic; or whether it arose from uses where the negative element was separated from "could" ("None of these writers could care less...") Meaning- saving elaborations have also been suggested; e.g., "As if I could care less!"; "I could care less, but I'd have to try"; "If I cared even one iota -- which I don't --, then I could care less." An earlier transition in which "not" was dropped was the one that gave us "but" in the sense of "only". "I will not say but one word", where "but" meant "(anything) except", became "I will say but one word."