Photojournalist fired for altered photo...

[Doylem]

The software is becoming more sophisticated and easier to use... by people who may not have great computer skills. So we can expect this issue to crop up more and more.

I don't like the way womens' bodies are 'shopped and airbrushed for magazines; they help to create a lot of problems for women and girls who may try - and fail - to achieve a similar kind of body perfection. There's room for argument; after all, we all like to look our best in photos, and unattractive models won't sell cosmetics and frocks.

But documentary photography hasn't lost the element of "this is what happened", and I hope it never does. And I don't think that ethics are something to sneer at. There's a lot of pressure on photographers to get the 'money shot' (and a lot of $$ when they succeed). Photographers may not stop manipulating images; they may just become more proficient at it...

 

[Mac Kiwi]

Golf photo } - So what if the image editor just increased the lens blur { created a stronger dof effect } which would give the front image more clarity....would they allow that I wonder?

 

[pdxflint]

Golf photo } - So what if the image editor just increased the lens blur { created a stronger dof effect } which would give the front image more clarity....would they allow that I wonder?

It's hard to say... these days most photojournalists shots are uploaded to newswire services and agencies for worldwide distribution, so if a news or photo editor alters the image enough to be noticed when compared to the original, they'd probably get some attention. The thing is, when you look at shots that come out of the camera for news reporting, basically they're "for the record." How many times have we seen in history that photos of someone turn up in images where they weren't the subject, and were perhaps unimportant at the time, but later due to historical events this person becomes famous. A photo which might have been valueless in regards to that person at the time, now becomes an iconic image--perhaps even priceless for it's cultural or historical value. You never can tell what importance anything in a picture may hold later, so keeping that in mind, it's perhaps best to avoid altering the picture too much in comparison to the original--assuming the original image is archived.
I guess it boils down to how accurate we, as a modern culture, want our recorded history to be, and that's where the legitimacy and integrity of that recorded history becomes the responsibility of the journalism professionals-- society's guardians of the truth, hopefully.

 

[cherry su]

The dudes at BP also got pwned:

http://www.americablog.com/2010/07/bp-fakes-another-oil-spill-photo-this.html

The fixing on the guy on the right is just so apparent.

 

[snberk103]

The dudes at BP also got pwned:

http://www.americablog.com/2010/07/bp-fakes-another-oil-spill-photo-this.html

The fixing on the guy on the right is just so apparent.

It can actually be quite difficult to photograph a scene where you have video screens as part of a scene. It can be done in a single shot, if you can control the lighting on the non-video screen elements. If can't control the lighting, then you're likely hooped. What the BP photographer likely did is make an exposure for the screens and then an exposure for the people.

Obviously it's Photoshopped. The BP photographer is not a photojournalist, so there is a question of whether they must be held to the same high standards as a PJ. If the photograph fairly portrays what a person would have seen had they been present, then is the BP image wrong? (A person standing where the golf photo was taken would have seen something different than the photo - so it falls outside acceptable, imo).

 

[gkarris]

I want to believe...

 

[the-oz-man]

Pictures shouldn't distort the truth. That's what journalists are paid to do!

Correction . . . that's what politicians are elected to do!

 

[pdxflint]

It can actually be quite difficult to photograph a scene where you have video screens as part of a scene. It can be done in a single shot, if you can control the lighting on the non-video screen elements. If can't control the lighting, then you're likely hooped. What the BP photographer likely did is make an exposure for the screens and then an exposure for the people.

Obviously it's Photoshopped. The BP photographer is not a photojournalist, so there is a question of whether they must be held to the same high standards as a PJ. If the photograph fairly portrays what a person would have seen had they been present, then is the BP image wrong? (A person standing where the golf photo was taken would have seen something different than the photo - so it falls outside acceptable, imo).

It looks like a different BP image here... http://networkedblogs.com/647Mg

You ask the question with a big "if" in there. Who makes that call? Obviously, that was their intention... to make the public believe that's what someone would have seen. But, they had to fake it (doctor the photo, as they say,) so it was something they wanted the public to believe, not necessarily something that was true. I can't blame them, but that's why journalism has professional and ethical standards... it's not supposed to be propaganda. BP tried to play both sides...giving the news media the information as if it were true and in the public's interest (while limiting access to real journalists,) and having their own self-interests which were best served by creating a false impression, geared to mask the truth... conflict of interest. That's why straight reporting has to have no master, no interests it serves, other than the public interest. Otherwise, it's not really a free press, but an owned press with an agenda.

Maybe the BP guy wasn't a photojournalist, but it was bad form for BP to doctor up an image for PR purposes, put it on their website and allow it to be picked up by news organizations without clarification that it was artificially enhanced. This is one of the problems I see happening these days--all organizations or special interests now want to do their own "in house" news gathering or photos, and simply hand them off to the news media... better yet, the web blogs (which don't have professional ethical standards.) There is an old Harry Truman quote, but I think it applies to unbiased journalism too--"Everyone tells me I'm giving them hell, but all I'm giving them is the truth!"

I think we can all understand BP's (and any organization for that matter) motivation in controlling their image through their own PR departments, but it's the job of news editors to sift through the propaganda, put a real reporter on it and try to keep them honest. Press releases are seldom run verbatim by newpapers or any news organization unless they're clearly described as press releases attributed to that company. They're usually cries for attention and publicity by an organization hoping someone will cover their "story." If they can write it themselves, so much the better.... right?

In a word... No!

 

[pdxflint]

Fired photographer admits mistake... sort of.

Freelance photographer, Marc Feldman, who lost his contract with Getty has admitted he made a mistake sending the original and the altered image to Getty for distribution, saying the altered image was intended only for the golfer after a suggestion from his caddie that his image be cloned out. Feldman said he would never have sent both images intentionally to Getty, that "only a moron would have sent both, and I would have done it a lot better, too."

http://networkedblogs.com/647Mg

I guess a person is innocent if they do something half-assed, because if they had really meant to, they would have done a lot better job, or something like that.

So is he saying he's guilty of violating professional photojournalism ethics, or guilty of not doing a good enough job of violating those ethics...?

The guy likely made a dumb mistake, but there's really no room for forgiveness here, or the 'bar' gets lowered. It's bad enough that the public already assumes news and pictures are not true anymore, with all the non-professional, no-ethics-required, internet sources of information, false or otherwise.

 

[Ruahrc]

Yeah the BP pic looks more to me like someone selected the area of the screen and turned down the exposure control so that a viewer could make out what was on the screen. Is it right? It's a tough call- personally I liken it more to adjusting tone for "optimum output" rather than straight up comping in/out elements of the scene.

BTW IMO if the picture was shot by a professional photographer hired by BP, i.e. a staff photographer, I would hold them to the same standard as any PJ. His job is to document the company and its activities, just like a PJ would. Does not matter if he is paid by BP or by AP, the same ethical standards should apply. What if it was a random dude with his P&S whose pic was snatched by PR to release to the public? It does get more wishy-washy here...

Freelance photographer, Marc Feldman, who lost his contract with Getty has admitted he made a mistake sending the original and the altered image to Getty for distribution, saying the altered image was intended only for the golfer after a suggestion from his caddie that his image be cloned out. Feldman said he would never have sent both images intentionally to Getty, that "only a moron would have sent both, and I would have done it a lot better, too."

...

So is he saying he's guilty of violating professional photojournalism ethics, or guilty of not doing a good enough job of violating those ethics...?

I think he's admitting he is guilty for what he did, and never implied he was planning on releasing the edited photo. I think what he was trying to say in that last bit was that the picture is so obviously edited and it is so stupid to send both that nobody should reasonably expect this to have been done on purpose, especially by a seasoned professional such as himself, because it's obvious that it would eventually be caught.

There's nothing wrong with doctoring a photo if you don't intend to pass it off as real- he doctored it for demonstration purposes (or maybe to give to the golfer) which was fine. The goof was when he accidentally sent it to Getty. Looks like he owned up to his mistakes and accepts the penalty. Personally I believe he was sincere in his explanation and it is kind of too bad that he loses this contract for it, but if he has been doing PJ for 26 years he knows the stakes for errors, even if they are unintended.

 

[Flash SWT]

Here is the reply of the Getty golf photographer:
http://photographyblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/07/marc-feldman-checks-in-about-a.html

Golf photo } - So what if the image editor just increased the lens blur { created a stronger dof effect } which would give the front image more clarity....would they allow that I wonder?

No, that is out of bounds also in photojournalism.

It can actually be quite difficult to photograph a scene where you have video screens as part of a scene. It can be done in a single shot, if you can control the lighting on the non-video screen elements. If can't control the lighting, then you're likely hooped. What the BP photographer likely did is make an exposure for the screens and then an exposure for the people.

Obviously it's Photoshopped. The BP photographer is not a photojournalist, so there is a question of whether they must be held to the same high standards as a PJ. If the photograph fairly portrays what a person would have seen had they been present, then is the BP image wrong? (A person standing where the golf photo was taken would have seen something different than the photo - so it falls outside acceptable, imo).

You're mostly right, but this is just a straight bad lasso job with a levels/curves/contrast adjustment of the selected screen, not two separate exposures stacked together.

The other altered BP photo is the one where it looks like they replaced the screens with something different: http://www.americablog.com/2010/07/bp-photoshops-fake-photo-of-command.html

.

 

[LethalWolfe]

BTW IMO if the picture was shot by a professional photographer hired by BP, i.e. a staff photographer, I would hold them to the same standard as any PJ. His job is to document the company and its activities, just like a PJ would. Does not matter if he is paid by BP or by AP, the same ethical standards should apply. What if it was a random dude with his P&S whose pic was snatched by PR to release to the public? It does get more wishy-washy here...

Why would you assume the primary role of a staff photographer for BP would be to accurately document the company and its activities and not to work hand in hand w/BP's PR guys to help project the image BP wants to show the world?


Lethal

 

[Ruahrc]

Why would you assume the primary role of a staff photographer for BP would be to accurately document the company and its activities and not to work hand in hand w/BP's PR guys to help project the image BP wants to show the world?


Lethal

I see your point, I guess my thinking was that if he was hired as a photographer to document things, he would have the ethics ingrained within him to be editorial in his coverage of the company's events. But perhaps that is a bit too idealistic. Really I am not sure what the role of a "staff photographer" is, to document the company history or to be a tool of the PR department. Maybe a bit of both, and I was thinking there would be some ethical standards in some situations but not necessarily in others. Otherwise, how would you trust anything a company does or says, and if you can't, what does that say about society?

 

[Flash SWT]

BP posts original and altered photos to Flickr
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-10053-10803

The Flickr gallery includes a note from BP saying "we've instructed the photographer who created the images to refrain from cutting-and-pasting in the future and to adhere to standard photo journalistic best practices."

.

 

[jbernie]

I see your point, I guess my thinking was that if he was hired as a photographer to document things, he would have the ethics ingrained within him to be editorial in his coverage of the company's events. But perhaps that is a bit too idealistic. Really I am not sure what the role of a "staff photographer" is, to document the company history or to be a tool of the PR department. Maybe a bit of both, and I was thinking there would be some ethical standards in some situations but not necessarily in others. Otherwise, how would you trust anything a company does or says, and if you can't, what does that say about society?

Then again it also depends on whether or not the person they hired is a photographer, photojournalist or just someone who has a fancy camera and a Masters in Photoshopping stuff to make it look better

At the moment I would say BP's reputation is sunk like their oil platform for a while so most stuff they say needs to be taken with a few grains of salt... hell maybe the whole salt shaker... and given their initial reaction I don't seem all too surprised by some photoshop work.