Ethics question in sports photojournalism

[sportsphotographer]

a number of years ago,
...we had a HS athlete in town who's been able to leap 5'4" in the high jump probably even in his sleep. He plays basketball, is nearly 7' tall. Best shot I ever got of him.. his knees were nearly to my shoulders if not his feet... had my short lens on and got a perfect shot - you could TELL he caught some air .. the floor was in the shot, and it was tight enough shot......so.. the decision was made to make it into a head shot with a very odd facial expression on it...

I don't work there anymore.


....... didn't end it with them because of that judgment call, but it was first of many that led to my leaving

anyway, that's just my two cents, interested in hearing what Dan has to say... as far as recourse, you can mention it to the proper person if you think it would help.. but it won't change what went out already so pick your battles.

Out of curiosity - since I'm a noob and not met you before this thread.. what's your interest? Just general public wanting to know..or are you a peer who wants to know how another culture handles it? or something else? Hope you don't mind the question - I am curious about you!

Thanks for giving me an insight into the workings of a newpaper and sports photographer. Very interesting and I am really enjoying finding out more.

Can I be bold and ask another question?

If you are the photographer and you are the only one that does the edit ... do you or somone else decide on the crop and final photo size? If the photographer does, how do you know what size and ratio to crop to? If it is someone else, do they ever "butcher" you image with a terrible crop decision that takes away the impact of your original submission? If so ... do you have any recourse or is it the editor's decision and you just have to live with it?

 

[AceCo55]

Sportphotographer: Thanks for that info - enjoyed getting enlightened.

Original reason for starting this thread? .... see post #3 (ethics of truth in journalism got me thinking about where are the lines drawn for sports photojournalism)

I am a keen amateur - just love taking sports photos. I live in a small rural town (1400 people) and take photos of local sports: Australian Rules Football, Netball, Dirtkarts, Tennis, Golf, Cricket and our one Triathlon event for the year. There are no other sports photographers in town, no real professional photographers within 100km (are a couple of part-timers about 50km away who do weddings). I sort of do it for both my pleasure and a service for the town. If people want a photo file or print, I supply them for a small fee, but I'm not fussed if I sell any or not. I just like locals looking at them (we are sort of like a big family - everyone looks out for everyone). I do a display for the footy club every week. I send in some photos each week to our local paper (one edition per week, maybe maximum of 24 pages!!!). I don't ask for credit (everyone in town knows I have taken the photos) and they give me a small contribution to my hobby). At times they totally butcher the photos with their cropping and sizing, I can never guess how many photos they will use, what size they will print or their layout. I think it depends on how much news there is for that week!!!
Sometimes I wish they would use less photos with a looser crop to let the image "breathe" and have more impact ... but it really doesn't bother me overly. Again it is a service to the town (bit of a historical record of sports here) and all the players can see my edited photos on my web site.
I was just wondering what larger newspapers did and how they operated their photography workflow. I find the business of sports photography fascinating - but I would never want to HAVE to get a shot or HAVE to meet a deadline.
Anyway - thanks for everyone's contributions - I have enjoyed the learning.

 

[imagemaker46]

The desk quite often make the photos fit the spaces, and it doesn't matter to them if they destroy the image.

 

[Hooligan Dan]

A couple of years ago I hired a new guy to work on saturdays. One of his first assignments was a charity race organized by a high school senior. The shot he turned in had the student on the far right of the frame holding up a megaphone shouting "ready...set...go" and the runners comming at her on the left side of the frame. The whole story was about her and less about the race. On Monday when I opened up the paper to see how his photo turned out the desk cropped the photo in a way that there was just the disembodied arm of the girl with a megaphone. The first words in the cutline were evern "Jane Doe, right...."

Never trust the desk to do it right. The best thing to do is talk to them about how the photos are going to be laid out at some point.

And that's my story for the day.

 

[polymoog]

Really interesting discussion here, and it makes me feel really bad, because I do clone out things from my pics to clean them up, (I clone out small things that get in the way, like barrier tape, or a partial person or object in the background) but I would never manipulate them, as in Big Mike's example where they added a totally different background (sunset). I am just an amateur and occasionally I get pics in a sledding magazine, the writer choses which pics he wants then I get to crop and process them how I want. Afterwards when the mag comes out, they might have positioned them partly on top of each other for stylistic reasons but I've never seen them altered from the image I turned in. The only thing that can happen is the exposure/colouring can change from how I thought it would be, because my monitor is not calibrated (I should really look into that) and my pics are only processed for web viewing ...

I think the point is, that a really successful image needs no cloning because the eye is not drawn to, or distracted by, any irrelevant elements or discrepancies. People like me who maybe don't compose the image very well, and who take pics often with insufficient DOF, find these anomalies stand out more, and thus feel the need to get rid of them.

Does that make any sense?

 

[imagemaker46]

I take out things on occation but for my own personal use, but never for editorial use. Don't make major changes to images unless it is being laid out as an illustration.